


Sins Unexplored

by TallysGreatestFan



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alien Sex, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Masturbation, Sexual Guilt, Sexual Tension, Sexual exploration, internalized ableism, religious trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:09:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TallysGreatestFan/pseuds/TallysGreatestFan
Summary: Horde Clones are not supposed to have a sexuality. But as Hordak starts his new life with Entrapta, it turns out that his feelings for her also include that. Seems as if the influence of Horde Primes indoctrination does not stop at his death.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 111
Kudos: 248





	1. Strange Hunger

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after "Aftermath" but you don't need to have read that to understand it.

He had had this sensation before, all in relation to her, but it had always been to faint and fleetingly to not classify it as just a malfunction of his defect body. Now it was not fleeting anymore.

He could feel Entraptas hands on his chest so clearly even through the fabric of his dress, the traces of electricity her touch created – she had said that was normal for the touch of a lover. But it was more than that.

Strands of her hair caressed over his neck, his bare flank, so silky. How firm her body felt under his hands. A part of him wanted her closer. How, she was already as close as mechanically possible?

Suddenly she leaned forward, and her soft lips touched his neck. His breath caught. It should have worried him, really, but he could not think and it somehow felt good, this hot, cascading feeling in his chest.

She licked, her tongue so hot and wet against his skin. Something pulsed between his thighs. All the sudden he was all too aware of the strong muscles of her back against his hands, the form of her breasts against his chest and the heat of her groin against his own, somehow even to feel trough both the fabric of his dress and her overall pants.

Was that normal? Was that something he was supposed to feel? Or just another symptom of his defect body?

She smelled good. Her scent made something inside him pull, as if drawn to her. He was so tense, and yet it was not uncomfortable.

As her tongue caressed his neck his breath escaped him with a low, growling sound. He had never heard himself make this sound out of pleasure, only pain. Was he okay?

She drew back, and he could see that she was smiling widely. Her cheeks were a bit pinker than usually.

He knew how she looked like, of course, but in this moment it was as if he suddenly would see with greater detail. How was it possible that she was so beautiful?

Another emotion emerged, something strange he never had felt before, or maybe at least not in this quantity, something like hunger, but for her, and not to eat, but to… he did not know.

He pulled back, horrified. No, this could not be good or healthy or respectful. He knew how much people with her specific way of thinking were dehumanized, she had told him about the awful things she had read on the internet, how much it had make her hate herself. He knew that other people loved to say they were like children who couldn’t understand their own decisions or like robots or animals, not real people. How could he possible treat her like this, seeing her as food was even grosser? He would find a way to stop this.

“Hordak?”, there was this hurt in her voice he hated so much. “Did you not like it?”

“I… I think I did. It’s confusing.”, he said. He gently signaled that he wanted to stand up. He wished he could do that faster but without armor it would just make him faint.

“Its not you. Its something with me. Something I have to find out alone.”

She still looked worried, but not as hurt anymore, and that was at least something.

They hugged briefly before she went to her own room, but even that felt strange after what just had happened. The whole time he hoped the hunger would not return.

The next day, his community service dictated that he helped with the reconstruction and new government of the Fright Zone. The participants of the meeting were a strange mix of former Horde soldiers, Clones who had come to the Fright Zone as refugees and Scorpion People reclaiming their former kingdom. The Horde soldiers behaved as they had to the time where he was still their leader; standing straighter when he passed them and not daring to meet his eyes, slight fear emitting from them. The Scorpion People glared at him. The clones turned to each other and whispered: “…spent over 25 years here on Etheria, away from Horde Prime, longer than anybody else…” “…made an empire for himself…” “…the one who brought down Horde Primes physical body…”. Their reaction was perhaps the most uncomfortable.

The meeting went surprisingly smoothly. Scorpias good nature seemed to radiate to everybody else. The only problem was his weakened body. He could feel how his concentration became lesser and lesser, how his eyes threatened to fall close. He dreaded the moment where he could not take it any longer and had to excuse himself.

“Can we take a break? My body is still weakened from fighting with Horde Prime, I need some rest.”, actually, this was not even a lie. Serving Horde Prime and then fighting him had indeed burned up his body, but only because of his already existing defect.

“Of course.”, Scorpia was so much friendlier than he had expected. The clones whispered again. The Horde soldiers looked a bit shocked to see their scary overlord admit a weakness like that. Even the Scorpion People looked a tiny bit less hostile for a moment. He had honestly not expected that.

He went to his old bedroom near the sanctum, as if trough a wonder still intact. He was asleep as soon as he lied down, without even taking the armor off.

As the discussions progressed, he had to take a second break, to eat and to sleep, in the late afternoon. It had been nearly two months that he had fought Horde Prime, but the way he had treated his body was still affecting him, he still needed to heal.

Only as it was already evening they had worked through all the points planned for today. Hordak waited until the others had already left, then he approached Queen Scorpia.

It was a bit pathetic, really, but she was the closest to anybody outside of Entrapta he could ask.

“Whoa, do you know that it’s kind of reassuring to see you, even after all that changed? I mean, I was always afraid of you, we all were, but still…”, Scorpia said.

He felt odd pride well up in him about being able to appear scary just as he had wanted.

“It is… actually good to see you too, Force Captain. Eh, former Force Captain.”, he wished he had paid more attention to her as he was still overlord of the Horde. But paying attention to people had never been something he liked or even was good at.

“How’s Entrapta?”

“She is working with the Space Council at establishing hyper-light communication with other worlds, which was why she could not come today. But she said she really wished she could, and that next week she will come.”

“Oh, I’m so looking forward to that!”, Scorpia nearly bounced with happiness. How odd that this was something she had in common with Entrapta. Had they been such good friends because of that?

“Aww, you look so happy when you talk about her!”, Scorpia suddenly squealed. Hordak felt his ears twitch. “I never know you could look so… you know, sweet.”

“I am not sweet.”, he insisted.

Scorpia still smiled in this specific way reserved for cute things.

Now came the difficult part: “Anyway… I wanted to ask you something for her.”

“Oh no. Did something happen?”

“Not really. Not with her. It’s all me, really.”, how could he possibly formulate this? What when this awful hungry feeling was so horrific that she would hate him for feeling that for her best friend?

He decided that pushing right trough would be the least painful option and said: “Please forgive me if this is as horrible as it seems to me, I would never act on that towards Entrapta, I respect her more than anything… I”, he breathed in deeply. “I had a strange emotion towards her. This… this sounds so dehumanizing, but I can’t describe it any other way… like a sort of hunger for her. Not to actually eat her, of course not, but to… touch her? Be close to her? See her?”

Scorpia just stared at him, then blinked.

“You sound just, uh, horny for her.”

“Horny?”, he knew the word, of course, but it was such an odd word.

“Does your species not have an, ahm, you know, sexual urge?”

He had never met anybody from his species who was not a clone or Horde Prime. “I don’t know.”

Then he remembered that one strange afternoon a few years after landing on Etheria and after he had learned about these sexual practices, at the strange sensations and his disbelieve that Etherians really were this excited about this gross and weird thing. “I… think we have. I… we do have sexual organs, but they are hidden away inside our bodies apart from… certain situations, that is probably why Horde Prime never breed that characteristic out.”

Scorpias expression went from “To much information” to shock.

“He would have breed that out, simple like that?”, there was a shrill tone in her voice.

“Of course. It is not useful, impure, only distraction.”

Scorpia shuddered slightly: “You know, I’ve been talking with all these clones, and I start to think it can’t possibly become any worse. And then there always is something that is worse.”, she shook her head, disgusted. “To deny you your sexuality. I mean, it would have been different if all of your species would be asexual, but if you are capable of this, to simply deny this… This is horrific.”

“Sexuality is not for clones. Only for lesser, impure life forms.”, Hordak said without thinking.

“That’s horrific. It’s a part of you, to force you to forget it is…”, she looked to the side, eyes dark with sadness, “But then, he did deny you every part of yourself, did he?”

Out of reflex Hordak wanted to disagree, wanted to say that it was an honor and necessary and pure – then he realized that it was true.

“I have all these clones here now, and they are all so confused and frightened and clueless, and to know how they have been treated… Sometimes I can barely work because it hurts so much.”, she shrugged. “I mean, I had a lot of restrictions in my live too”

“I am sorry for that.”, the guilt was like an heavy, black mist in his chest. “I just… didn’t realize how wrong everything I did was.”

“No, you could not have known. Not with… not with coming from all this.”, she made a vague movement with her pincer.

“Yes, you did some indoctrination and had military rules, but really, compared with the Galactic Horde this was nothing. You and the others, you were violated in ways I didn’t even thought possible.”

“Perhaps.”, a voice inside him still said that it was not that bad. That this had been his destiny, he had thrown it away, and really, it was Primes light, it must be good. Hearing Scorpia be horrified somehow reassured him.

But having her sympathy made him uncomfortable in the same place.

“How do you learn the things you needed to know about sexuality? Could you recommend me any resources?”

“Oh man.”, she said. Only then he fully realized that sexuality was somewhat a taboo topic on Etheria. Not as much as on other planets he had been, but a taboo nevertheless.

“I should not have talked about that topic.”, he said. She looked at him strangely, possibly unused to the scary overlord apologizing.

“No, its okay. I just don’t know where to start.”

“How did you learn about these things?”

She shrugged: “Older soldiers. The cadets I trained with whispering to themselves about things they had learned.”

It started that early? He would have so many things to catch up on. Would he be ever able to please Entrapta as she deserved? No, he should not think like that. He was a good learner.

“But, really”, Scorpia looked away and seemed to get even more abashed, “mostly from the internet.”

“As in pornography?”, he thought back at that day Force Captain Canus had accidentally unleashed an virus displaying pornographic advertisements on all of Hordaks computers that had taken a whole day to purge.

“Well, yeah, that too… I mean most of it is really bad, especially the mainstream stuff, I don’t get why people find it so arousing to humiliate others, and most of the stuff really looked not that pleasant. It’s good for understanding the movements in detail I guess, and more detailed than anything else but, like, it hardly ever featured people like me – Scorpion people I mean, or even just people with my body type, and since you do not look like the standard Etherian you might have that problem too. No, I hate to admit that but what is really good and also includes people who are not so standard is stuff fans of stories create. Drawings and writings.”

That was indeed interesting. He had not expected that. He knew of Etherians stories of course, had even read some – even if he had always felt guilty afterwards that he had not done something more productive, and he liked science more, so consequently less it were. He had even been vaguely aware that fans sometimes created own stories or pictures to add, but he had not been aware that these could be quality work.

“So what do I search for?”

Scorpia energically shook her head: “Oh no no, I you search for nothing at first, I sent you some of my favorite stuff, stuff that could be useful for you, and then you go from there. There is so much out there and some of it really disturbing, I think its better when you learn some basics first.”

“And what about more objective things? Technical manuals?”

She scratched her head with her pincer: “I guess that exists? But I know none, I am just not the type for these.”

So he would have to search for that in a library. Given the taboo surrounding that topic, that could be embarrassing.

“But ask Entrapta. I was with her as we brought her stuff from Dryl, and oh boy, she does have some naughty things. And the way she talked about you…”

He felt his face heat up: “She did?”

“Oh yes, she did not expect anything, but she was fascinated by your waist and hips nearly right from the beginning. Well, that and your technical knowledge. Catra was so annoyed. Entrapta is a very horny person.”

“I noticed.”, he slowly said. Then a scary thought crossed his head: “What if… she is repulsed by how inexperienced I am? Isn’t experience something that is seen as attractive?”

Scorpia thought for a moment: “Oh boy, I shouldn’t really tell this but then it’s for the better of both of you and I think she would be okay with me telling this, and you are her boyfriend: Aside from doing… unsavory things with her robots she has no real experience with actual people. And she is insecure about this too.”

The talk about her doing these things brought several explicit pictures in his mind, but he pushed them away. His cheeks and the tip of his ears were hot again, and there was this odd pressure between his legs.

“Though… You are disabled, right?”

He still felt a pang of fear that she knew that. But of course she knew, he had spent the first two weeks after the battle without his armor and lying in bed because his body was too exhausted from serving Horde Prime.

“What has that to do with this?”, though he could already guess why it mattered.

“Probably nothing, I just… I never heard anything about disabled people doing these things. Nobody talked about it, and there is nothing out there I know about. It could be just misinformation, I mean I always read that people like Entrapta and me are not able to love and never have any sex drive, which is obviously bullshit, but…”

An horrible thought occurred him: Would his damn defect body even be able to have sex? Was he even able to satisfy Entrapta?

“Thank you.”, he simply said.

She smiled: “You are actually really nice when I got to know you.”

They were both so busy with their respective projects to rebuild Etheria that he only met Entrapta again in the afternoon of the next day. They stood in her lab, several basic machine parts laid out on the table in front of them.

“What did you research the other day?”

For some reason he did not quite grasp, it felt wrong to tell her, and it felt wrong that he had tried to learn more about this at all. Presumptuous. Clones should not have sexuality. From what Scorpia had said, defect people should not have sexuality either.

“You don’t need to know.”, he tried to evade.

In one swift movement, she grabbed his arms and pushed him backwards. “This has something to do with the effects of my touch. It concerns both of us. I need to know.”

He should have not been able to feel as much trough the armor on his arms, but he did feel the strength in her hands. Felt the power in her as she shoved him against the wall. He flinched, the wall was so cold against his back, a contrast against the warmth of Entraptas grip, of how warm it suddenly was.

She was so strong… Beautiful and strong. The realization pooled into his body and gathered in his loins, a hot, pulsing sensation.

She could manhandle him with her hair too and he would be helpless… A shock so strong he nearly gasped.

“Hordak, is everything okay?...oh…”, her gaze flinched over his whole body.

Only then he realized. His cheeks burned.

“I already wanted to conduct some experiments if you are capable of this reaction!”, she chattered.

Another shock as he realized what that meant. No, he should not have these reactions. But if Entrapta liked it?

His mind felt strangely foggy and to hot. He looked down his body, at the clear bulge in his skirt, and blushed even more.

“Was that… the result you were wishing for?”, he managed to say.

She hold her own hands as if to keep herself from happily moving them. “Nah, every result would have been promising and something I could have worked further with. But this… you are very pretty like this.”

For a moment he could swear there was this hunger in her eyes. A soft whimper escaped him.

Only now he realized that she breathed hard.

This was too much, and at the same time he wanted more, and he did not know what was the right, proper action.

“This was what I was researching about. Sex. I know next to nothing about it, and I figured I should learn more as your partner.”

“I am always here for some experiments.”, her voice was uncharacteristically dark and teasing, her gaze wandered to his erection and then back to his face, and something inside him throbbed hard.

“A good starting point is to touch yourself to get to know your bodies reactions and what feels good. Then you don’t have to find out this stuff when you are with me later. Oh my, it was so long ago that I started with this, I can barely remember how I did it, but it must be like this.”

He hated to admit it but he really had no idea: “…how would I do that?”

“Start caressing yourself and feel what feels good, and in which direction and to which places your body leads you. It’s in your ancient programming. When you are capable of this”, she pointed to his hardness. “there must be code for the rest of it too.”

She paused for a moment, then grinned mischievously: “I can watch you if you want.”

He had to keep himself from whimpering again, but also the thought that she might see how truly unknowing he was, see him faint or his body give up in other ways made him uncomfortable.

“I… I think I feel more comfortable alone.”

“Oh, totally okay.”

“Can I… go and be alone for a moment? I think I need it after this.”

“Of course.”

It took at least fiveteen minutes until the odd heat had left him. His erection simply retreated back into his body, which was something he was vaguely aware was not normal for Etherian men, but knowing Entrapta it would not bother her. He still felt strangely vulnerable and exposed for the rest of the day though.

In the evening he checked if Scorpia had already sent him her research material, but she hadn’t. He took his evening medication and went to the place where the machine took off his armor. He was strangely nervous while it worked. As the armor was gone, he felt even more vulnerable than usually. Slow through his quivering hands and atrophied muscles, he pulled his dress over his head, folded it neatly and laid it on a chair, then stripped his briefs down.

It felt absolutely wrong to be naked and not putting on something else directly. This was wrong. He was not supposed to do this.

He thought at the two times he had done this before, one a few years after he was stranded on Etheria, out of curiosity, to find out what all this obsession with sex was about. It had been strange and gross and wrong, and not worth exploring further, and he had felt stained for days afterwards. The second time had been in a haze, not even really consciously understanding what he was doing, just wanting this awful longing for Entrapta to go away. He had know it was wrong too. It would be wrong this time again. But he also did this for Entrapta, and so he had to overcome himself. Shouldn’t these rules not apply to him anymore, because Horde Prime was dead? But why felt all of this still so true?

He sat down to conserve his energy. It felt wrong but there was also a part of him that quivered with anticipation in what he was about to do. A part of him that remembered how Entrapta had shoved him against the wall today. How she had looked at him.

Just touch himself and look what touches felt good, she had advised. Hesitantly, he laid his hand under his colar bone, felt the sharp arch under his fingers. It tingled as he brushed against his neck. He moved his hand down over his chest, over the muscle there. Another tingling sensation as he stroke over his nipple. He repeated it. Hmm, that felt good. A light pressure between his thighs.

He looked down at himself, the at least somewhat muscular chest, his flat stomach, his broad hips with the sharply sticking out hip bones, his wiry thighs, the flat, smooth expanse of his groin, at least at the moment.

He almost stopped at this. This was impure. This was darkness, not the light. Sin.

But he had to learn about this to be a good lover for Entrapta. She deserved it. He had to.

And so he forced himself to continue, and tried not to think at how false this was.

He slid his hand down his stomach. Either he was doing it too softly or just right, he could not say, because the lean muscles tensed under his touch and his skin tingled, and waiting pressure arose in his loins. In an attempt to avoid his groin, it still cost him too much overcoming to directly touch himself there, he stroke over his thighs. Caress with normal pressure felt just nice, but light, grazing his skin with his fingertips… oh… His right leg twitched lightly, and he only realized that he gasped as he heard it. This was good, he decided. (Wrong, its wrong, wrong, wrong, a voice inside him said. Pleasure is selfish.).

He repeated the touch, then brought his fingers back to his hips. The inside of his thighs near his groin was especially sensitive, he discovered. His breath caught and the touch seemed to end up directly inside his sex as he brushed his claws over there.

One deep inhale, then he cupped his groin with his hand. Pleasure pooled in him. Was that normal that he felt this hot there?

He rubbed up and down. Immediately he felt the pulling sensation that had confused him so much earlier again, felt something shift inside him. It was very pleasurable, actually, in a way so direct he had hardly ever felt from his body.

There was an opening, almost completely hidden. He knew from the two times he had done this before that this was where his sex slid out of him when needed. He was glad that unlike the Etherian men of his troops it was neatly hidden when not in use so that a kick in the groin would not set him k.o directly. He traced it with his fingertips. _Oh_. A shock of pleasure trough him. His thighs spread in a gesture too fast to be anything else than instinct.

Getting hard from Entrapta shoving him against the wall earlier was his instincts way of wanting to serve her, he suddenly realized. Another shock. Without wanting it, his head fell back a bit and he moaned, an undignified, needy sound. Something pressed up against his fingers.

His body had been ready for her, he thought, and the pressure increased. (He should not feel this, this was just another part of his defect, and really, why would she want him, he was ugly and deformed and to skinny). Somehow, he managed to push the thought aside.

He stroke over his emerging glans, smooth, very smooth and surprisingly soft over the hardness. Damn, this was intense. He had thought before was intense but now… He was panting and the pressure had become so much that it almost hurt, but even more, if felt so good that he could not stop.

He pushed his fingers inside himself, over the part of his shaft that was still inside his body, felt it slide out. This felt so damn good… He was hot and tight inside. If she would like feeling this?

An very plastic picture of her hands between his thighs, her fingers inside and around him, her brown skin an stark contrast to his dark blue and pale white. It was only for parts of a second but it made desire pulse in him, made him moan and fall down on the bed.

Was it okay to think about her like this? Guilt immediately joined the pleasure. He stopped for a moment.

Better just use actual memories, not fantasies, until he had found out if that was respectful. But he needed release, his cock was throbbing so damn hard, and he couldn’t stop, needed more touch.

It was fully out now, and he forced himself to contemplate it. He had heard that people liked large cocks. Well, he would say that it was relatively long, but he had absolutely no data to compare, so he could not be fully sure. And long as it was, it was not exactly thick. Would that be a problem? Was that unattractive?

His worries faded however as he traced the faint ridges on the underside up to the slightly pointy top. Every touch was pure pleasure. Every touch made him moan and shiver. And still it was not enough. He closed both hands around himself and stroke, and somehow, the pleasure got even stronger, rolling trough him, letting his muscles tense.

He remembered Entraptas hungry expression, how her gaze wandered down to his erection. She wanted him. Damn, she wanted him.

Without consciously wanting it, his hips bucked up into his touch. He could hardly breathe, only groan and gasp and moan. He didn’t care.

But then suddenly he felt the familiar falling sensation of near fainting. He stopped, waited until it was okay again, tried to ignore the shame.

He continued to touch, and soon he was at the same level as before, panting and moaning.

He thrust into his hands, and pleasure rose higher and higher, but it was not enough, still not enough. He gripped his cock harder.

What if Entrapta had touched him more during this episode earlier this day? When she had kissed him, her tongue in his mouth, her whole body against him, firm and strong, her body against his erection? When she, curious as she was, had explored him with her hand? He could imagine all too well how this would have felt.

Pleasure cascaded trough his whole body, his muscles clenched and spasmed, and he arched up. A sound he had never heard himself make, a throaty groan, escaped him.

As it was over, he sunk on the bed, too exhausted to even move. His heart beat heavy and his arms hurt from the effort, and he was still panting. Aftershocks still flickered trough him, let him shiver slightly.

He was so exhausted that he did not even managed to put on clothes again before he fell asleep. But even before that, the guilt came back, and replaced the pleasant calm. Clones should not do that.


	2. Closing In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not want to put these in the tags because it would clog them and its really just a small scene, but there is a moment of quite graphic violence. In Hordaks nightmare, when Horde Prime decides to kill Entrapta. 
> 
> Also there is _heavy_ internalized ableism in one dialogue. In that dialogue after their "date"

“Don’t be confused by the strange titles”, Scorpia had written, among other things, on her mail with the research data. As he looked at the video links – he supposed it was most useful to see the detailed techniques in videos before he looked at lesser detailed described art and literature – he could immediately see why.

“Wiry Catgirl surprising her girlfriend sexy”, was the title of the video in question. Wouldn’t it have been more useful to say what exactly they were doing in the title? But then, he knew next to nothing about sex and also not much about the art of videos either.

He should click on the link. He felt a strange hesitation. There was something odd about knowing that he would see naked people having sex with each other when he clicked on that link. It seemed like to much.

Why did this feel different from his other research? He was just trying to find something out? Why was this different? No, it was not, he said to himself, and followed the link.

The catgirl from the title had slightly darker skin than Catra and was a bit more busty, but looked surprisingly similar. She arrived at a home where a curvy woman of the Etherian main species waited. They kissed, it soon became heated, and his instinct said to look away. Even he knew that things like these were private. And he had run into just enough of his soldiers making out to know how it looked like when their kisses and caresses got heated.

The young woman stepped back and suddenly stripped down, revealing black lace underwear. It really was somewhat uncomfortable to watch strangers half naked. Also he had never understood the use of lace underwear. Sure, it looked interesting, but it did not seem very practical? He could not imagine Entrapta wearing this. If he would not be this damn skinny and bony and sick he might wear it, but as he was, it would just seem silly or even gross.

The two in the video had meanwhile advanced to taking said underwear off. From this ankle, the cat woman really looked like Catra, and he had to stop. He really didn’t wanted to think of Catra in this situations. Had Scorpia been sexually attracted to her? Now it felt even more invasive to watch that.

He breathed deeply, and needed a moment until he could look at the second video.

“Cute Drylian fucks female friend with hairy pussy for fun”, these titles really were… something. Even just reading that made his face heat up. And why did they had to specify the “for fun” part? As far as he know doing it for fun was the main reason for sex, with reproduction just being the mostly unwanted byproduct. In fact, had not Horde Prime taught them that this was one of the reasons why sex was not for clones and only underdeveloped people did it? Because they did not need the reproduction part and thus the rest, for fun, became selfish?

He forced himself to start the video. This time, the protagonists were a man around thirty and a woman of the same age, both bored watching some video at first but already ten seconds in finding each other more interesting. There was something very aesthetically interesting about the man, his skin being brown with lavender undertones like Entraptas and his face just as sharp. The shirt he wore was not interesting in itself, it was clothing typical for Dryl as he had seen it so many times in the city near Crypto Castle, but the stocky but thin built of the man underneath made it interesting.

Did Entrapta and he also looked like this from the outside when they kissed passionately as this man and his female friend? He was not really sure if it was too primitive and gross or oddly fascinating.

His gaze got stuck on the lean back muscles under olive brown skin as the woman pulled her friends shirt off. He gulped. He had not been aware that he could feel attraction to both women and men (could he also feel attraction to someone of that mercenaries, how was their name, Double Troubles, gender? He had not met enough non-binary people to know..) Was that normal?

The two protagonists were busy removing their clothes and in between kissing every inch of exposed skin. It made him remember how Entraptas lips on his neck had felt like. Made him wonder how they would feel on his chest. Or how it would feel if he kissed, licked over her neck in turn. She had a pretty neck, the strong muscles from working with heavy machines and carrying her whole weight with her hair just slightly visible.

He felt the by now familiar pulling sensation again, felt heat pulse in his groin.

The man kissed a trail down the womans now half-bare chest, making her moan. It should have concerned him, but something primal, some program of him he had never really used before, understood that this was pleasure, not pain. A flash of imagination, Entrapta sitting on his lap, his hands pulling the white part of her shirt down, his face pressed against the smooth brown skin of her chest… Would she moan like this woman?

He was definitely getting hard now.

Already a pang of guilt arose, but he could not focus further on it because in this moment the man opened the womans bra and hastily pulled it down.

Hordak vaguely knew how a breast looked like, half of his soldiers had these and in an army one just happened to accidentally see exposed bodies sometimes, when people had to remove fabric from an injury or when there was no privacy available for cleaning, that was just how it was, he had never thought longer about this. Somehow this was completely different.

She had small breasts, in a very aesthetically pleasing form, and her chest had looked just like Entraptas as she was still clothed. He couldn’t help but imagine that Entraptas breasts would look like this womans, with the only difference that Entraptas skin was darker than this womans beige.

He could not have imagined that his face could get any hotter, but it did. A hot shock trough his loins.

Then the man actually took her nipples into his mouth and slid his hand down her stomach into her briefs at the same time. His breath caught.

This was too private to watch, but he couldn’t help but observe how they pulled their underwear down. He was doing this just to learn how this worked, to learn the techniques, he said himself. This was just normal research and thus okay. His arousal said otherwise.

He was breathing hard as she took the mans cock in her hand, stroke, fast up and down movements like how Hordak had touched himself yesterday. The memory sent a mix of embarrassment and arousal over him. In turn the man passed his fingers over the womans sex in quick, sure motions.

Hordak had no idea how these archaic movements that did not fit into anything he had ever learned about aesthetic were so fascinating and beautiful to watch, but they were. And what they did with his body was even stranger.

He tried to force his lust down to actually do why he was watching these videos; analyze and understand the techniques and how genitalia worked.

The woman seemed to use the same technique of her hand on the man he had used at himself, but the mans cock did look different, not just in the color. No ridges, and the tip was blunter. It still was really pretty somehow. Concentrate! What he had wondered about his own size yesterday seemed to be true, if this was the large end of normal sizes (as Scorpia had warned him in her mail), his was long too. Well, at least that, one thing lesser to worry about.

A closeup on the womans sex. This was so damn intimate, he should look away, but he needed the data. And he wanted to look, if he was honest.

It glistered slick with wetness. He overlaid the picture with the anatomical names in his head, trying to understand what happened, trying to force down the urge to not think and just watch and touch himself. Vagina, the opening below where the wetness seemed to come from. The flushed nub of her clitoris between the labia, the point where it was most pleasurable to touch, even he was vaguely aware of that. Her lover focused most on that, rubbing two fingers over it. She thrusted her hips against him.

Suddenly he realized that this must be close to how Entrapta looked underneath her overall trousers too. Automatically he imagined the curly hair on her pubic mound and labia purple instead of dark brown, the skin darker. Imagined his own fingers on her, how she would feel like (he could hardly imagine it but it was enough).

His hips bucked up without him wanting to, and a desperate, needy whimper escaped him.

No, no, this was encroaching, don’t wonder about this, just concentrate on the video.

But he needed release. He moved his hand under his dress.

The man now pulled the woman above him, and she settled down around him.

He tried to analyse the way their hips moved together, the way their bodies connected, but really, it was hard to concentrate on in face of the strange, archaic beauty of her sex around his.

He thrusted hard into his hand.

Then both of them screamed out, and the video was over, far to sudden.

He blinked, took his hand off himself. It took him several minutes until his heart rate had gone back to normal. That had been so strange.

He felt oddly exhausted, not even physically but emotionally, but he had decided he would do research, so he continued. The third video had something about someone getting “eaten out” in its title, and he had absolutely no idea what this meant or how this could be pleasurable, it sounded horrific, but this video must have been chosen for a reason.

Turned out that this meant kissing a partners vulva.

His heart beat so heavy in his chest that he could feel it everywhere else in his body as the deer-person girlfriend of the grey-skinned, pointy eared woman trailed kisses down her stomach. He could see how tense she was, in the way her face twitched, in the way her muscles tensed. Her head fell back and her eyes closed in an expression that was desperately sensual as her lover parted her folds with her hands and gently licked.

Something about this… He could not see as much as in the other video, but he didn’t need to, knowing what she did was enough. It had a sense of submissiveness and servitude he realized he found extremely appealing.

It didn’t took long and he was as hard again as at the end of the other video.

He couldn’t help but imagine pleasuring Entrapta like this, her sitting on one of the labs chairs, naked, and him kneeling between her parted legs, his face between her thighs. He could imagine so well how she would sound like when she moaned, when she grabbed his hair to hold him in place, and he would be so happy to serve her, to…

No, this was too much.

He turned the video off, stood (it was too fast so he felt dizzy). He didn’t looked into the rest of the research.

At least their responsibilities were keeping him and Entrapta apart for the rest of the day, he would have felt so strange seeing her after thinking these things. But they had lunch together at the next day, and every time he looked at her he had to think at these fantasies, and felt stained. Thankfully they talked about other things, science, and it was like that too as they worked beside each other in the lab the day after that. It was wonderful, as it always was, but there was always this strange stained feeling in the background. They were waiting for a probe to be finished centrifugation as she asked: “How is your research about sexuality going?” She managed to sound both hungry and nervous.

“Eh”, he wanted to say something, knew that he should, but he could grasp no words, all that was there was intense embarrassment.

“I… did that with the touching myself.”, to much information, that was not something one said, wasn’t it? “I looked into the research material Scorpia sent.”

Entraptas gaze flickered back and forth from his face to the floor. He remembered that he had had questions for her: “Is it… is it normal to be able being attracted to more than one gender?”

“Of course. I mean, there are people who are attracted to only their own gender or only other genders, and then there are some who aren’t attracted to anybody, but I think I read once that about …half of the population is attracted to all genders. I myself are. So yes it is very normal.”

He nodded. He remembered now that she had told him about a date gone wrong with a woman, yes.

“And”, he continued, “are there rules about which kind of fantasies about a person are allowed? At which point is it disrespectful?”

“I… never really thought about that. As long as they are neither harmful nor humiliating I think all is okay? Or maybe everything the specific person would consent to in real live?”, then she seemed to realize something: “Do you have fantasies about me?”

He breathed in deeply, then nodded.

Her hands moved as they did when she was intensely happy, but she did not met his gaze.

“Do you find that… bad?”

She looked at him, uncharacteristically shy: “No. In fact its… very sexy and it… it actually arouses me knowing that.”

It seemed that his brain processed what she had said only after a few moments and he gulped in air and felt his face heat up. Heat pooled in his loins. No, not now.

Thankfully, in this moment the centrifuge clicked to show it was finished, and they went back to work.

He had heard that fantasies also came as semi-realistic dreams, and he half anticipated and half dreaded that he would have these, but he hadn’t. Instead, he was back on the Velvet Glove.

He stared into the abyss and the emotion of triumph shifted, warped into something else, something twisted, something not him. He felt Horde Primes essence seep into him, and he was drowning, drowning, drowning. No, get out, get out, help, help me, no, I don’t want to… He felt Horde Primes amusement at how he fought, like a chuckle in places of him nobody else should ever be, ever. It was like hands, everywhere, to much touch, to intimate, and every time he pushed one away there was another, invasion, touching him everywhere, invading his body and all these secret corners in his mind. Then it was over, no matter how much he fought, and he was forced at the utmost corner of his own mind. No space. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even scream.

Every single joint burned and screamed and he could do nothing to ease his pain. He heard his neck crack.

He felt his lips move with a power that was not his own, and could only watch.

“Ah little brother… So it’s true. You have been thoroughly corrupted. So be it.”

His legs walked towards Entrapta. He knew what was coming. No, not her. Please, I beg you, not her. Horde Prime didn’t even bothered to answer, all he could feel was his amusement. Amusement and anger.

Entrapta ran, screamed. He felt his hand reach out, grab her hair. It was so soft, too soft to be pulled like this.

“You forced my hand.”, Horde Prime lifted her up at her hair. He could actually feel how her hair writhed, how Entrapta kicked. Even if he knew better he started to fight again, but absolutely nothing happened. Horde Prime simply continued with his monologue: “I will unleash the heart and we shall die in cleansing flame together.” There was a shrillness in his voice, anticipation, insane anticipation.

“I don’t need you anymore.”, and his other hand reached for Entraptas neck. No. Hordak raged, screamed, sobbed in his prison, but he could not escape, he could not safe her. He could simply feel how Horde Prime, how his own hands grabbed her and twisted her neck, feel the bones break, feel her muscles rip under his own hands. It took long and was hard work to break someones neck, and he could feel all of it. Entrapta resisted every single piece of it, kicking and screaming and then just whimpering in pain, but then finally he felt the bones shift under his hands, heard a loud crack, and her body went limp.

“Dispose that.”, he could not even say goodbye.

He awoke drenched in cold sweat, shaking. The horror still lingered. No, this was just a dream, right? It had to be (it felt so real).

He stood, and made his way to where he knew Entraptas sleeping chamber was, as fastly as he could without his armor. He knew this was strange, creepy even, but he had to see that this was just a dream. That she was still all right.

He went inside. There she laid, cuddled into a thin pink blanket. Still breathing.

But he must have walked too loudly, because she stirred and sat up.

“Hordak? What happened?”

He was so relieved to hear her voice, see that she was alright, that he couldn’t even speak for a moment.

“Nightmares.”

He did not need to explain, she understood already what those nightmares were about, he could see it in her face.

“Come here.”

So he sat down on her bed. The mattress was slightly firmer than his own. It was still warm from her body.

Entrapta pulled him into a tight hug, and he sunk into it, to exhausted to even put his arms around her in turn. He felt tears burn into his eyes.

“Its okay. You are safe now. He is dead. I’m here with you.”

He should have said something, but instead he just cried, and buried his face in her shoulder. He felt so weak, but somehow, when her arms were around him, it did not seem to be that bad anymore.

They stayed like this for a long time.

“Its okay.”, she said and her hand stroked trough his hair, and her hair softly enveloped his torso.

Some when, he had calmed down a bit.

“Do you want to sleep here for the night?”

He almost already said yes as he realized what the implications for taking someone into their bed were on Etheria, and he blushed.

She smiled: “Just for cuddling. I mean, I do want to have sex with you at some point, but you decide when you are ready for that.”

He smiled back, and nodded.

She gently pulled him down with her.

Nobody had ever said him how mechanically difficult it was to lay cuddled with somebody. Entrapta and him were so differently tall, so that always some limb laid awkwardly or some joint stuck against an uncomfortable spot. But finally they managed, with her back against his chest, his arms around her, her feet against his lower leg. She hold his hands in hers.

On the too hard mattress his joints hurt even more than usually, and his right arm, the one she was laying on, slowly got numb, but he did not care.

She felt so warm and alive, and the dream seemed far away. He pressed his face against the back of her head and breathed in her scent. The sweet shampoo she used for her hair (coconut? Was that how it was called?), machine oil and engine grease, and fresh sweat. A warm feeling washed over him, so deep that it almost hurt.

She hummed, and cuddled closer to him. He loved the sound. He loved how firm her back felt.

She caressed his hands and lower arms, his disturbing, deformed underarms. Every stroke he became calmer. He could feel how her chest rose and fell with her breath. Over time his breath synced, became slower.

The world did not matter anymore. There was just her.

He was safe. Had he ever felt so protected?

And so he slowly dosed off, in complete peace.

_

She awoke from the sensation of Hordaks body brushing against hers. For a while she just laid there, half sleeping, eyes closed, just collecting the sensations. His chest against her back, his lower body against her ass, his legs brushing against hers. The warmth radiating off him. None of the literature she had read had ever been able to capture how warm it felt to have someone share your bed.

She heard him breathe, slowly, peaceful.

This was real. She was not alone. She had a friend, soul mate, lover. Partner.

Now when he did not see it, she could let her hands flap in happiness. She turned and watched him.

In his sleep, his face was completely relaxed. All the harshness was gone. Despite his sharp features he looked almost soft.

As she watched him longer she realized that his legs and arms sometimes slightly moved in dreaming, and his ears twitched. It was so cute.

How could Horde Prime ever harm something so beautiful?

She would protect him.

He had really chosen her. _I love you_.

She nearly flinched at the thought. It was so deep, so much, simply, it just must be dangerous. She only could get hurt. That was how it always was, wasn’t it?

No, he would not harm her. But really, she still did not fully understand why he had chosen her.

She caressed over his face, feeling his ear flicker in her hand, and then stroke down the sharp line of his cheekbone. He smiled in his sleep and turned into the touch. She couldn’t help but smile too.

Then he moved in his sleep, and they way his lean body brushed against hers was all too wonderful. Suddenly she became aware of how much of their bodies touched, and how flimsy his nightgown was. She let her gaze wander over his neck and the delicious form of his collar bone, all left free by the nightgown. There was something fascinating about how his thin arms looked, the patters of dark blue turning to white at his shoulders. She wanted to trace it with her fingers and lips. Wanted to hear his heavy breaths and hungry growls. A strong shock trough her sex.

She followed the form of his flank down to the curve of his broad hips. Half she wanted to reach out, find out how he felt there, but she did not want to do something so big without him being awake to consent to it. Instead she followed how the folds of the fabric outlined his curves, subtly hinting at his thighs and higher up what was hidden underneath.

She remembered how he had grown hard for her a few days ago, and for a moment her desire got so strong that she could barely bear it.

She was breathing a bit harder than normally and she noticed that she was wet already.

The nightgown only went to his knees and left his lean but well formed lower legs free. The pattern of his skin was similar to his lower arms, but he did not have the same gap between the bones as there. His calfs were thin, the bone jutting out angularly, and absolutely beautiful, and just now she realized that she had never before seen his lower legs uncovered. Somehow, this detail made everything so desperately intimate.

She laid down again, this time facing him, and pressed her body against him. Even just that bit of friction… And he pressed himself against her too, causing her to instinctively rub her body against him.

A deep hum, almost a moan. How could she be so damn wet from this little?

She laid there, her body against his, caressing over his flank and back and breathing in his wonderful scent, and imagined all the beautiful things she could do with him, and it was enough in the moment, she did not even want more.

As she carefully let her fingers wander up his neck his eyes flew open. Red glow in the dark. But it was slightly dimmer than normally, and instead more focused on her. Still slightly sleepy, but within seconds it went away, and only a hungry intensity remained.

Her loins pulsed expectantly.

Their lips met. She grabbed the back of his head, and he slid his tongue into her mouth, teasing, playing. He had gotten so good at this.

Her hips bucked against his, and he pressed himself up to her and slung one leg around her hip. The pressure was incredible.

At some point, they broke the kiss, panting. Hordaks eyes were still half-closed, his lips parted. So beautiful…

She leaned forward and kissed his neck, over the neck tendon, right under where it met his angular jaw. She felt him shudder against her whole body. A soft, desperate “Oh…” escaped him.

“Do you like that?”, her voice was already dark and breathy.

“Yes…”, she almost had to moan herself as she heard him like that, all out of breath and pleading and horny.

“Good.”, she kissed him again, harder this time, all the way down to his collar bone. His hard breathing turned into gasps.

She was so wet, she could feel it soak her pajama trousers, but she did not care. Lying there, her beautiful lover pressed against her, his hands so firm on her back (she had absolutely no idea that her back was so sensitive, but it was), hearing him gasp and moan, feeling him shudder, his soft, smooth skin against her lips, was so much it almost overwhelmed her, but only almost. So intense.

She flipped her tongue lightly over his neck, and this time, he nearly jerked into her embrace. She felt his claws dig into the fabric of her shirt, not hard enough to harm her, but hard enough to prickle.

She had to gasp for air.

Only for a moment she saw Hordaks hungry gaze, his parted lips, then he growled and was at her. His hot, wet mouth against her neck… Every touch seemed to end up straight in her sex.

He nibbled, the carnivore teeth an interesting sensation against her skin. Then he continued to kiss her, harder. How soft and yet firm at the same time his lips were….

“Yes. Keep doing this!”, she barely managed to form the words. He hummed, a deep sound she felt vibrating against her skin. His tongue made small, fast movements over her. It felt so intense, how was it physiologically possible that this could feel this intense? She arched her head back and a long groan escaped her.

“Oh, this is so good… Exactly this.”

She heard, felt him chuckle, then he let his tongue dance over her whole neck and her breath came in flat pants.

Her hair spiked without her really wanting it. She wanted, needed something to hold, so she grabbed his hair, frantically stroke over the back of his head. More accidentally she touched his ear. It was basically glowing. She took it between two fingers and gently massaged.

His whole body tensed. She would have been alarmed had he not uttered a high-pitched sign in the same moment, almost a chirp, aroused and needy.

She drew back a bit. “Do you like that?”, she teased.

His red eyes were so large in this moment, he looked so young and so submissive, almost afraid, but his narrow, sensual lips curved into a hungry smile.

“It feels really good.”, he sounded as breathless as she felt.

She smiled, then she leaned forward and licked gently over his lobe.

“ _Oh_.” He flinched again. His hips moved against her, instinctively? (In the back of her head, she made a note that it was wonderful that these instincts seemed to be intact. However, already at his next thrust the thought vanished).

She nibbled, kissed, and then licked up to the pointy tip. His chirps gave way to a breathy moan.

“Hmmm, you sound so good…”, she moaned against his skin.

They didn’t quite dare to slip their hands under their clothes yet, but they continued to touch each other for most of the rest of the night.

_

“I have been thinking about this, eh, sexual intimacy aspect.”, Hordak said.

It was a slightly cloudy, very windy day in Salenias. The air smelled of Natriumchlorid and a few sea gulls were screaming in the distance. Entrapta had convinced him to take a walk outside, and now they were standing on the one remaining harbor mole. Thanks to the wind and maybe also everybody being exhausted from the reconstruction work he only had made needed, nobody else was on the mole. It still felt strange, too vulnerable, to be on the open air, but with Entrapta by his side, it was more bearable, and the patterns of the waves and the wind against his skin did indeed provide interesting input.

“Huh?”, Entrapta turned to him. He could see at the almost unnoticeable quivering of her hands that she had to control herself to not move them in excitement.

Why was it hard to speak suddenly? “I know that in several Etherian cultures loosing ones virginity is an important ritualistic milestone. And we are both virgins. But… it also feels like a strange expectation to want the first time of something to be perfect directly. Especially… given the nature of my body and possible sensory differences you could experience, I think it would further the chance of success more if we treat this as an experiment. We could set up a specific time, make a list of every device we could possibly need and simply try without the demand that it directly has to work in the best way possible. When there is something that does not work we just change the experimental setup next time. That… that is, just when you are not too attached on the ritualistic approach.”

She stared at him wide eyed, and for a moment he thought he had done it wrong, that he needed to apologize.

Then she smiled broadly, and jumped up and down a few times. “That sounds like an absolutely promising approach! Do you or I get the needed material?”

“You know more about this topic, so you would be the logical choice?”

She hugged him, kissed him, hard. As they parted she was still smiling.

“Just wait until we are finished with Mermistas assignment for this week, yes? I don’t want to do it in this ratty little hotel.”

He was so nervous that he could barely breathe. He stood in his own room, completely naked, staring at the pile of his underwear, and fumed at how he had never bothered to buy anything nicely looking because he had been so sure that nobody else would see it anyway.

Well, then just one of his tight, black briefs that he bought in packs of five would have to do it. He doubted that Entrapta would care, but still… he wanted to show how much this meant to him, and if he himself could not be pretty, then at least his clothing should be. But somehow, and he still did not quite understand why, she wanted him. And somehow he was able to believe that.

He put it on and then slipped a tight black dress that left his back, shoulders, arms and collar bone free over himself. Then he went to do his makeup, more carefully than usual.

As he took the crutch and slowly made his way to Entraptas room, a part of him just wanted to flee, so strong had the nervousness gotten. No, he could not do this to Entrapta.

She rose and ran towards him as he entered the room. He couldn’t help but stare. She was not wearing her usual outfit, but a rose tank top, and her least battered cargo pants. He had seen so many of his soldiers in just as or even more revealing outfits, and yet he had to stare at her bare arms, the muscles slightly visible under the brown skin. At her hands, bare as well. At the arch of her collar bone, partially uncovered. Her cleavage. At how tight her trousers sat at her hips, accenting their curve.

Her gaze slipped over him as well, over his hips and flank and then his shoulders and collar bone, accented by the geometrical cut of his dress.

“You… look good in that.”, she said, her voice softer and a bit flatter than usually.

Warmth spread through his chest. It still felt wrong, as if she must been lying, but he said: “You look good too.”

She smiled nervously, and her gaze flinched back and forth. “Come here.”, she sat down on her bed.

He walked towards her, sat down too, and noticed the tissues, box of condoms and the bottle of water beside the bed.

In this moment he only really realized that in very short time, he would lose his virginity. He gulped.

The heat of her body was oddly over-present as he sat down beside her.

“Are you nervous?”, he asked.

She laughed a bit. “I will be having sex with my beautiful partner for the first time soon. Of course I am nervous.”

“I am not beautiful.”

She tipped against his cheek with her hair lightly. “You are.”

“So how do we proceed?”

“I think we kiss and caress each other and then look how it develops from there?”

“Okay.”, he still felt as if it was hard to breathe.

She kissed him. At first, it still was soft and awkward, but it got deeper, more heated fast. Her hands roamed over his neck, shoulders, bare back, leaving prickling traces. To feel her bare hands… They were slightly rough, and he could feel the strength in them.

His hand found hers, and he explored it fascinated. He traced his fingertips down her fingers, and then over the palm, over the faint lines there.

Entrapta breathed in sharply, and her body tensed, the way it had tensed as he had kissed her neck.

He wanted to hear that again. He brushed his claws over her hand again, slowly, softly. Her lips parted, she breathed harder than normally.

As their hands touched for the next time, she moved hers as well, her fingers sliding over his, the touch barely there and yet even more present. He felt immediately why this had turned her on so much. The touch prickled, electrified him. He felt it everywhere, not only in his hand.

Entrapta smiled slyly and repeated the touch, and now it was his turn to gasp.

He did not know how long it took until it got so intense that he needed to do something. He brought Entraptas hand to his lips and took two of her fingers in his mouth. She tasted salty. He brushed his tongue against her.

A hungry, primal expression rushed over her face. She made a deep, throaty “ _Oh_ …”

His loins throbbed hard.

She smiled, and took his hand in turn. As she kissed his palm, his breath caught. Her soft lips against this sensitive skin…

Then she closed her lips around his index finger, and he actually moaned. Her mouth was so hot and wet and soft…

They kissed again, long and deep, and she hold him at the small of his back, and he caressed her neck and brushed his hand trough her hair. Her lips moved down his throat, and he arched his body into her touch. Every sensation resonated between his thighs. Desperate to touch something of her, anything, he laid his hand on her thigh.

“Hmm, that feels really good there!”, she hummed. He caressed her, soft touches down the inside of her thigh, and she actually parted her legs. His sex throbbed so hard, and he could feel her gasps against his skin.

He could smell her, the scent of engine grease and coconut shampoo he already knew, but also something new, a musky, very female scent he could not quite grasp but instinctively knew was her arousal. Arousal because of him. He shuddered. She smelled so good.

She traced the form of his spine down, all soft touches and blunt fingernails, and he tensed, shuddered at the prickling touch. She seemed to like that, because her lips were slightly parted and she looked him up and down.

“Lay down”, she ordered gently, and pushed him on the bed. Grinning, she crawled beside him. It actually was not an especially erotic way of moving, not at all, but the strength in her movement… The way the muscles in her arms showed… How he could see all the way into her cleavage…

He breathed in shakily. The bed was strangely soft and smooth, too detailed, against his bare back. Suddenly he noticed the nervousness again. It was still as strong as before, to tight coldness in his chest.

He suddenly wondered if she expected him to be hard at this point. He didn’t wanted to make her believe he did not desire her. He was aroused, absolutely, everything of his body screaming for her – everything but his sex.

Could that be one of the high-potency medicaments he was taking? But he had not changed anything about his medication in the last time, so why should this issue suddenly appear?

She slowly pushed his dress up, traced up his thighs. He shuddered, parting his thighs for her, even if along with the pleasure nervousness trickled into him.

“You have such beautiful legs.”, she said, as she brushed her fingernails up the inside of his thigh.

Without wanting it his hips bucked up. She chuckled.

He should have said something, but he could not think clear enough.

With one smooth movement supported by her hair, she was over him, her firm, strong body pressed against his, her weight on him. He felt her hot breath against his ear.

“I want you…”, she moaned into his ear, he could feel the air of her breath against him.

Something strong that made him gasp washed over him, and he could not quite say if it was lust or fear.

She rocked her hips against his, and again he became all too aware that he was still not hard. He felt her hand on his neck, then shoulder, then chest, then –

“Hordak, is everything okay?”

“Of course it is.”, he rushed to say. He could not ruin this for her. He would have to solve that with the nervousness.

“Okay.”, she continued. Her lips found his neck again, her fingers played with the hem of his dress, her hair was an silken curtain around him, and it was not arousing anymore, it was just too much.

She slipped her fingers under his dress, over his ribs, his damn sticking out, to skinny ribs. He didn’t want to be naked in front of her. He didn’t want her to see every single disgusting detail about his defect. He was not allowed to do this. How selfish this was. She deserved this. He would not ruin this. He had to endure. He had too.

Now he was absolutely certain that the emotion was fear.

Suddenly, she took her lips off him and looked down at him worried.

“Is really everything okay? You look so afraid and tense. You really don’t have to do anything for me, if this is making you uncomfortable, you totally deserve that your boundaries are respected too. Really. I don’t ever want to force you to anything.”

He gulped in air, didn’t quite managed to meet her eyes.

“I… I’m… I’m sorry, it has nothing to do with you, I’m just… I am suddenly so nervous and afraid. It is too much. To fast? Perhaps?”

She rolled off his hips, and caressed his face: “That is totally okay. Never force yourself to anything, yes? You deserve to feel good too.”

“Okay.”, he said.

For an long, awkward moment they were both quiet.

“Its...I learned that disgusting, defect people like me should not have these feelings. That it’s gross and uncomfortable. And… I feel guilty because clones should not feel these things at all.”

She looked just as shocked as Scorpia when she had learned that.

“I’m sorry.”, she said. And then, after a pause, “Its okay. I wait until you are ready. Just say that the next time, yes? I don’t want to force you to anything, your boundaries are important too… no matter what he taught you. It’s okay to say no.”

They settled spooned against each other, her firm body against his back, her arms around him. He felt so secure.

“You know, this is different of course and I will not take anything away from how much you suffered – but in a sense, I am not supposed to have a sexuality either.”

“But you are Etherian! You are a Princess, even.”

He could hear her sad smile in her voice: “But I am also not how I’m supposed to be. And they say that people like me are always unable to feel love and sexual desire. Or feel anything at all, really. They say we are like robots.”

“But why would they say that when it is empirical not true?”, he growled, angry at the people who said this.

“Because the thought of people like me being in romantic relationships or even sexual makes them uncomfortable. Because they find it disgusting.”

He would have maybe been able to bear it if she had been angry or sad. But she said it so matter of factly, she really must believe it, still, even now. He wanted to kill these people who said these things. He wanted to cry about how much she must have suffered. He could do neither.

“They think I am like a child. That I will always be like a child, never grow up. Incapable of doing my own decisions, or understanding what I do.”

“This is ridiculous!”, he raged, because he had no idea what else to do, “A child could not have built all these machines! A child could not have found Glimmer! Every single point of data says that you are a grown woman! How can they don’t see it?”

She hugged him tighter.

“They don’t care. They never look.”

And then he remembered how Princess Perfuma had pleaded to lower Entraptas punishment as they had decided Entraptas and his community service, because she meant that Entrapta could not fully understand her own actions. How Mermista had nodded and Scorpia had just sat there, horrified but quiet. Burning hate raged trough him. He would scream at Perfuma and Mermista the next time he saw them until they treated Entrapta as she deserved it.

Entraptas voice was flat and quivering now: “When you try to inform yourself about how your brain works, and every single time you just read these things… how egoistical you are… that you are a burden… that you are not a real person… that you should not exist… At some point you believe it.”

“Entrapta…”, he caressed her hand, helpless. “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

He heard her sob quietly and gripped her hands harder. “I usually don’t think about it. But when I do… I still have difficulties to think of myself as an actual person.”

He smiled sadly: “I don’t really see myself as an actual person either.”

She was quiet for a long time, but then he felt her kiss his neck softly.

“Maybe that is another reason I fell in love with you. Because you are, even in this too, so much like I.”

_

After he was gone, Entrapta was to emotionally exhausted to do anything more than watch some recorded experiments on the internet. At some point it was evening, and she sunk on the bed. She rolled around and noticed that she could still faintly notice Hordaks irresistible scent. She breathed it in deeply.

It hurt to think about how much he hated himself and how conflicted he must feel. She felt so sorry for him, today should have been wonderful and not him nearly forcing himself to something he did not want. If she would not have noticed… No, don’t think about it.

She rolled to the other side, the scent still in her nose. He truly had been here with her today. Heat pooled between her thighs.

How good it had felt to kiss him so hard, the sounds he had made, this dress outlining all his curves…

She pushed her hand between her thighs. She could feel the wetness trough the fabric of her shorts already.

For a moment she contemplated to get one of her sex toys, but she was too impatient for that right now. She needed release now. A good old jerking off would do.

She laid on her stomach, didn’t even bothered to play with her breasts first, and cupped her groin with both hands, her left thumb pressing against her clitoris.

She thought at how good his back had looked in that dress, the line his spine made, the implant, the patterns of white and blue, how the dress got so excitingly deep that just a few centimeters deeper and it would have shown his ass. She remembered how he had shuddered as she touched him there. How smooth and soft his skin felt, the bumps of his spine clearly to feel under it. The warm metal of the implant. The lean muscles.

She imagined standing behind him, elevated to his height by her hair, and caressing his neck with her lips and tongue, holding him in place with one hand and letting the other trail down his back, up to the edge of the dress, tracing along it to tease him. He would pant, these wonderful sharp breaths that made her so wet. Then she would slip her fingers underneath, under his underwear, to cup his gorgeous well-formed ass. She could totally imagine the surprised gasp he would make. How his whole body would tense.

She rubbed her hands against herself, slow first, then faster and harder. Oh, this felt so good, she had needed that.

She remembered how he had kissed her neck, how the touch of his tongue and lips and teeth had echoed in her whole body. In her imagination, he trailed his kisses down, hungrily pulling her shirt and her bra down, and licking her enlarged nipple.

A hot shock trough her. She moaned, an undignified, deep sound. Her breasts tingled with anticipation.

She imagined to push the straps of his dress down his shoulders, letting the fabric slide to the floor to bare his gorgeous, thin body. Him, naked and willing on her bed.

In her youth, very early in her sexual exploration, she had accidentally watched a movie that was much more explicit than expected, and one scene had stuck with her ever since: How the heroine kissed the bare chest of her lover, their silhouettes dark against the light, and the way he arched into her touch. She would flick her tongue over Hordaks nipples, making him shudder in pleasure. She could imagine the sounds he would make, his expression, quite well.

Pleasure rolled in waves through her, higher and higher. She rubbed harder against herself. Her breath came in flat gasps.

She would slid her hands lower, then, over the ports at his ribs and the ones underneath, his flat, firm stomach, his hip bones, the curve of his hips, his long, wiry thighs. He would squirm and gasp. And then between these thighs.

She had a bit problems to imagine in detail how his cock would look like, and even more how it would feel like. She had no references for his species. It was fascinating, really.

But even just the memory of how he had gotten an erection from her shoving him against the wall aroused her enough. She was close now. She remembered every detail, how the fabric of his dress had fallen around it. She imagined to touch it.

What sounds would he make when he came? Would he growl? Scream, overwhelmed by the sensation? Or just make a subtle little sound, his lips parted, his cheeks so red?

She rubbed hard against herself once more, then the pressure unloaded. The shock made her shudder and utter a highly undignified grunt.

She collapsed on the bed, panting, pulled her hands up from under her body and laid them beside her head. They smelled after her come.

But she was still not sated, not fully. She made herself come two more times before she finally fell asleep exhausted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wrote this as fast as I could and still I feel really slow. But then, this is a long chapter
> 
> Writing all that sexual stuff was really fun. During that dialogue about how much their societies prejudices against disability make them hate themselves I actually had tears in my eyes. It just hits so close to home. But then, the beauty of this ship is that there are finally people like me, that I can explore this stuff.
> 
> As always, I love comments!
> 
>  _Edit 05.07.20:_ Tomorrow a very difficult and exausting lab rotation starts for me, so I will not have time to write as much and the next update may take a while


	3. Error Diagnosis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I didn't post anything for so long already due to being busy at university, I decided to split the next chapter. This chapter will be a bit different than the two before; only talk about sex, no actual sexual situations. 
> 
> As for the last chapter, expect talk about internalized ableism and Hordak using ableist language on himself because he hates himself so much, also a very brief rape mention as he and Castaspella talk about trauma at the beginning.

The more he heard Castaspella, the two soul mages, the psychiatrist and the therapist talk about different measures that could help the clones to find into their new live, the more he wished these things would have been there for him too as he arrived here. He had not been aware that a mind, soul, as they called it, even if for him this word seemed a bit too vague, could be this complex and easy to damage in so many different ways. He had thought it was just… there, having to function. Sure, there had been cases where some of his soldiers had suffered from illnesses that made them constantly horrifically in despair, or in panic, or alternating between despair and disturbing, overdrive-like happiness. But he had thought that came from imbalances in their brains, so a physiological problem, and it was usually possible to cure with a medication that restored the balance of these transmitters. He had not thought this could come from their minds, or souls, itself.

Kadroh listened and added something from his perspective, while Hordak mostly kept quiet and took notes.

Actually, some of these measures would help him even now. He still did not understood some details of Etherian culture, and how his most recent private “experiment” with Entrapta had ended… well, that did showed that there was some error in his mind.

“How does this thing work?”, Castaspella put an hologram projector on the table and stared at it confusedly.

“It has no power right now”, Hordak said.

“Then how do I put the power on?”

Hordak walked over to her, and finally managed to put the power on. But it did not activate, instead it just made a high pitched, sizzling sound. Electrical discharge. A few sparks flew.

Before he had even consciously understood what happened, Hordak had both of his arms in front of his face, protecting, eyes closed, face turned away, ears low. Fear shot trough him, and even as it was gone, his heart beat too fast and he just wanted to run.

Then he realized that it was not dangerous, and he lowered his arms. Oddly, he did not feel save, a bit of the fear was still there and only slowly fading.

His gaze found Kadroh, who looked startled too, eyes wide, brow a bit too high in fear, ears low.

How embarrassing, to be so flinchy in front of eyewitnesses. He remembered something he had seen other people use, that might fit into this situation.

“Well, we all know these moments where we suddenly feel as if we are in danger again.”, he said with a smile. It did not feel convincing. And judging to how everybody just stared at him, and did not smile, it indeed wasn’t.

The conference continued. About a hour after that they made a break so that everybody could eat and drink. Hordak planned to eat fastly and then sleep for the rest of the time, but ran into Castaspella before he could find a quiet, hidden place.

“Are you okay?”, she asked.

“What?”, he hissed. Then he remembered that he had not to be strong anymore, that he was safe now. It still felt threatening. “Why do you ask that?”

She signed. “I saw a reaction like this before. Well, I am not a psychologist, and this is only one of the symptoms this has, but I knew someone who reacted this extreme on small, startling things too, and also said the same things about being back in fear… She was involved in a horrific accident of higher, more dangerous magic, and it nearly killed her. And you are one of Horde Primes clones, right, and while I do not know what you endured specifically, this whole system was absolutely horrific. Both the soul mages and the psychologist say this was a level of abuse they didn’t even saw anywhere before. That must have done something with you.”

A part of him wanted to growl at her and threaten her to uphold his scary appearance. But also, this would explain so much about him. Only now he realized how desperate for help he truly was. Entrapta helped him, yeah, but she could repair machines, not organic minds, and he didn’t want to burden her with this.

He had no idea how he brought up the courage to answer her: “You suggesting as in… Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?”

“Yes. And… how do I say this… the closest the psychologist knows to your situation are highly abusive cults. It’s called religious trauma.”

“But that is a real illness. It is from a chemical imbalance in the brain after immensely stressful situations. I am just not grateful enough, not strong enough, not…” he almost said “not faithful enough” and then remembered again that Horde Prime was dead. “It is not bad enough to be that. Nothing bad enough for that happened to me. No physical trauma, no real rape…”

Castaspella smiled, and it was not a happy smile, but one of horror. “You know… everybody I knew who had this thought their specific trauma was not bad enough to warrant it. And… one of the most horrible forms of abuse we knew until now was grooming a child for a specific cause, and only for this cause, denying them every form of identity outside of that, and punishing them when they try to be anything else. And you had not only that, you were purposefully created just for one cause, denied a real childhood, brainwashed into thinking this was normal and good. We believed that every person has at least this possibility to be anything they want to be. You didn’t even had that. Your whole existence was just to serve and die for Horde Prime. You were slaves. Literal slaves.”

He struggled to understand what was so bad about this, in his mind this was still very much the normal condition, but from the way her voice trembled, he realized that this must be absolutely horrific for Etherians.

She breathed in sharply: “Please… stop me if something, anything triggers you, but I just want you to understand that this was not right. I am so, so sorry for you, all of you.”

He nodded, a uneasy feeling in his stomach. He did feel ungrateful for starting to believe this. But there was something wrong, he could not deny it.

“I don’t know if it’s true, but they say you endured not one but two mind wipes, and that you came back because you love Entrapta so much.”

“Yes”, he said, an odd coldness taking him over, “I didn’t wanted to kill her… I still miss some things, details, but it all came back with time. Before this, I didn’t wanted it, but… it seemed necessary. Now I don’t know anymore.”

“He invaded your mind. Used your body.”, her voice was flat.

“Yes. I… I still have nightmares.”

“I heard about how he touched other clones.”, she was clearly uncomfortable now.

“He did. I… I did not realize… Only that I myself would never do something like this…”

“I saw how burned up your body was after Adora freed you. You were treated like a resource, nothing more, and… that is horrible.”

“I never thought I could be more than just a resource.”, he hated how flat and squished his voice sounded.

She shook her head, and her eyes shimmered. He looked away. “I am so sorry.”

She breathed in a few times, then she finally caught herself, and continued: “And… this purification ritual… I heard about it. Under our classifications that is literally torture.”

He flinched without wanting too.

“And this is not even to mention all the subtler manipulation, the brainwashing. All these small things that go into the mechanisms of your mind.”

“I thought PTSD would just be a physical reaction to immense stress located in the brain resulting in abnormal neurotransmitter release.”

“It is, but a mind is more complicated than that. I don’t really know specifics, but the fact that there is a entire science about just how it works shows how complicated it is. But that is also why therapy works. If you understand these mechanisms, you can find ways to change this damage… slowly, with difficulties. But its possible.”

“But… everything is good now. I am with Entrapta. I don’t have to be a ruler anymore and fight. I would be so ungrateful to need help now.”

“No. Not after all these things. You wouldn’t say someone is weak just because they got injured during a brutal accident?”

“No, not really, but…”

“This is just like repairing one of your robots, just for your mind.”

“Okay.”, he didn’t knew how to argue with that.

“How was your meeting?”, he sat on the couch beside Entrapta, her warm, firm body against his, her arm around his back. Touch, but not so much touch that it was threatening, impure.

He explained, and finally concluded with: “…and so Castaspella suggested that psychological therapy could help me, and I concluded that this is true. She said she can arrange a place for me if I want too.”

“Hordak, that sounds good! I… I see that you are suffering – and I don’t mean that as in that you are weak, that you endure this and still manage so well shows how strong you are – and I hate that I can’t really help you enough. But a person trained for this will know how to help you”, she sounded almost excited, but at the end there was a darker note underneath it, something he almost did not notice.

“But?”

“What but?”

“There is something else. I heard it in your voice.”

She looked away, her hair fiddled with itself. “Well, just because this was like this for me does not mean that it has to be for you too, in fact, most likely this will immensely benefit you…”

“Entrapta, what happened to you?”, he gently but firmly asked.

She still did not met his gaze. He had read that people with her kind of brain did not like to look others in the eyes but he had never noticed that with her, only when she was immensely upset.

“My fathers always knew that something was wrong with me, even since I was a toddler. I have so many childhood memories of how I was at doctors and psychiatrists and soul mages trying to get me diagnosed. Trying to find out what exactly was wrong, to help me.”

He never had a childhood, and this made him wonder how this would have been, but even he was aware that this was not how a childhood was supposed to be.

“I was seven when I they finally found out. For the diagnosis they had my fathers and me come into a room with a playground in it and one of these one-way-mirrors in the wall, I don’t know anymore what exactly we had to do. I brought my favorite toy tools.

I hardly remember anything of it, but I remember every detail of how we got the letter with the diagnosis. My fathers told me afterwards that this was such a relief for them, to finally know, and that they never loved me less for it, but really…”

“It feels as if they erase your whole worth. All you want is not to be like this. Make it not happen.”, he could not help but to remember the day as he had collapsed in Horde Primes strategic meeting. The disgusted gaze. How he had been studied and poked in sickbay.

“Yes.”, she said, “I tried to hack the clinics computer, but I was seven years old, so naturally… My fathers found me crying on the floor of our server center after that. I just… I thought that if I erase the record in their system it would go away. So foolish.”

She huffed, eyes full of anger to not start to cry: “Incurable developmental disability. So there would be no way out.”

She breathed in deeply, and then seemed to remember why she had started telling: “Anyway, my fathers organized therapy for me in the same clinic. Secretly. Nobody should know that the heir of Dryl was mentally disabled.”

“You’re not…”

“I am. Its not the nice way to describe it but I am.”, he hated the disgust in her voice. Hated the people who had made her believe she was wrong, something that needed fixing.

“I hated therapy. I hated every minute of it. My fathers said it benefited me greatly, and that the therapist always treated me well, and I can understand that, I was such an annoying, wrong kid before that. I needed it.

Its so long ago, I can’t really remember any specific instances, but there is always this air of having done something wrong on these memories. Of feeling foolish and stupid. All the way she pointed out I did not behave how I should have, how I was different…

And then there was this accident, and my fathers died, and without their signature therapy couldn’t continue or some burocratic thing like this. Looking back, it would have probably been better for me if it had continued, even with Crypto Castles staff mostly teaching me or me teaching myself puperty was horror, realizing that I didn’t had all the things one should do during this time, and then going to engineering university in my twenties, because there are some machines you are only allowed to buy by the Mystacor ethics committee with a degree, was even worse. I am still so weird. There are still so many things I should know and do not. Maybe everybody else would not treat me like this then.”

“Maybe they are just all bad people.”, Hordak wanted to say, but then realized how improbable it was that everybody but him and Scorpia and that archer were bad people, and kept quiet.

“But your brain is not wrong like mine. Maybe therapy is okay if you are not like me.”

He shrugged, to exhausted from hearing all of this pain in her past to prevent her from talking about herself like this.

“How is it like?”, he asked.

“You talk a lot. It feels very uncomfortable, especially in the beginning, because they need to know the deepest parts of you to heal them.”

He breathed in deeply. That sounded horrible, already thinking at having to bare himself like this made his chest tight. But if it would make him feel better?

“It’s a lot of analyzing why you act the way you act, and what kind of mechanisms are behind that, and how you could try to change them if they harm you. It takes long, though. You need to do this again and again until it even starts to work. And you get little things you can do to deal with difficult situations. Thinking at a place that calms you, or focusing on your breathing or some sensations in your hands to distract you, things like this. It’s really exhausting.”

“And I just… have to open up to them?”

She shrugged: “You will learn that.” She didn’t added it but he knew that both of them were thinking it: It would be so hard to be this open when he had to hide who he truly was for the last twenty-five years.

Entrapta brought him, flying a Horde glider enhanced with technology scavenged from Horde Primes spires. The city was between Brightmoon and Crypto Castle, just in the territory of Dryl, which meant, as Entrapta told to calm him, that the people working there did not have to report back to Brightmoon. As they stopped, he actually had to fight to keep going. He was wearing a new, light armor Entrapta had made him and his most modest dress, and how unfamiliar it felt made him even more uncomfortable. He should have listened to Entrapta and just wear what was most comfortable but he had wanted to make a good first impression.

“I wait over there in a hour.”, Entrapta said.

He walked into the building. It did not look how he had expected, not the cleanness and calming abstract art of a doctors room, but nooks and crannies and vases with flowers, potted plants and paintings of plants everywhere.

He immediately feared for these vases to be kicked down as he heard a young woman shout around the corner: “…no reason to do this shit! And absolutely no reason for me to work on reparations either!”

His ears dropped. As if all of this would not be uncomfortable enough… He had no desire to see Catra again, no matter if she claimed that she would be a better person now or not, and especially not vulnerable as he was right now. He had made the mistake to trust her once, he would never do it again, and he would do everything in his power to protect Entrapta and Scorpia from her, even Adora, should it ever become necessary.

He looked around. He found a corner behind a particularly large and green potted plant, and hid.

Not a moment later Catra stormed around the corner, tail flickering, followed by an enviably calm Adora. They walked through the door, and Catra slammed it shut, then they were gone. If Hordak had been Etherian, he would have shaken his head at this scenery.

He had just started to decide which one of the magazines on the low table right beside the plant to read first as his name was called out. Heart racing, he went to the room where it came from.

A short, heavy woman of Etherias goat species smiled at him and gestured to come in.

The room had a bit lesser plants, only a vase with some golden flower he was not familiar with on a low table, but two armchairs on each side of the table, a whiteboard and a shelf with books and several small items he had seen some of his soldiers fumble around with when they were nervous but whichs actual purpose he did not know.

He stood in the middle of the room, a bit lost.

“Sit down. Do you want water? With or without carbonation?”

He sat. “Eh. Without.”

She handed him a glass half full of water. Her skin was not pale as that goat-woman Catra and Scorpia had brought back from the crimson waste, but dark brown.

“My name is Isana.”, she said.

He nodded. She already knew his name.

There was silence that felt wrong. Finally, he said: “Eh, this Magicat who walked out a moment ago… Is she your patient too?”

“Aggressive, wiry built, differently colored eyes?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

He nodded. “I would like to avoid her. Can I have a appointment on another day of the week in future?”

“Of course.”, they discussed which day would fit best for a while.

“So how will this proceed today?”, it felt uncomfortable to sit still. He couldn’t help but shift again and again. She must have seen it, but she said nothing.

“At first I will ask some basic things about you. Then I will start to fill out a sheet that helps to determine what exactly is causing you these psychological problems.”

“Like a error diagnosis on a machine.”

“I would not have formulated it like this, but yes, in a sense. This will take longer than just this hour, approximately the next four at least. If you have any more urgent issues we can stop twenty minutes before end and talk about that.”

“I… actually I have.”, he said before he could regret it.

“Okay.”, she just said, and took a pen and a pad. “Castaspella said your name is Hordak.”

He expected that she would add. “Lord Hordak, who tried to conquer Etheria for the Horde.” It did not come.

Instead she said: “I learned that you Horde Clones do not usually have names. Is that a name you gave yourself? Is there any specific meaning behind it?”

The only person he had ever told this was Entrapta. His chest felt tight, he hated the thought to open himself up about this, he could almost physically feel the barrier to say it. But he wanted to contribute well, and he wanted to get better.

“It is right, we do not have names.”

“How are you distinguished from each other?”

“We are not. There is nothing one clone does that another can’t do as good. We are interchangeable. If there is something where it is really necessary to distinguish, the computer recognizes us on our implants.

But as I”, the memory almost overwhelmed him, even now. Pain, emptiness, where are all the others? “ended up here and these unorganized fighters against the Princesses found me they were confused by my missing name. I chose something just so that they could interact with me in their inefficient way. It simply means ‘of the Horde’ in the language of the last planet I witnessed Horde Prime extinguish before they sent me to die. But by now… this word does feel like me. I grew… attached to it.”

She wrote down something on the pad.

“Some more basic questions. How old are you?”

“I… don’t know. I think I am on Etheria for something between twenty five and thirty years, measuring from the change of seasons. But I can’t really tell how long I was in the galactic Horde since years are different on all the planets I was and I was mostly in space. Seasons were for the primitive people we brought into Horde Primes light, not for his clones. I think it was not longer than five years.”

“So you were fairly young when you ended up here.”, there was something in her voice he could not read.

“Yes.”

“You have no childhood, have you?”

“No. We are grown to early adulthood in our vats, and through our neck port we are programmed with everything we need to know.”

“How does it feel like?”

He was taken aback from her question, he had never thought about it. Never thought it would be important or special enough to, it was just a part of his live that had to be like this.

“I… hardly remember anything. It feels a bit like fragments of a dream. That and the deep knowledge that I have to serve Horde Prime, that this is more important than anything else. This feeling is my earliest memory. That, and how older clones help me out of the vat, clothe me, and how I report for duty.”

“What kind of duty?”

He did not want to think about it. Was it that what Entrapta had meant about having to talk too much? But it must be important, and he had to make a good impression.

“At first I helped to monitor and plan army movements of us and the enemy. Back then I thought I was really important, I was so grateful that Horde Prime allowed me a task so important. And then he transferred me to work directly in his highest war room. For most of my live I thought he chose me for being smart, that I was his top general – as he brought me into the Horde again upon his arrival and Entrapta helped to free me I finally realized that I was foolish to think I was special to him. He probably just chose me because I was particularly subservient, or just because I was there.”

“How did you end up on Etheria?”

He breathed in deeply. He had summarized this in a few sentences to Adora and the others at his trial, but he had only really explained it in detail to Entrapta. He did not want to say this. Did not wanted to say just how wrong he was. He shifted back and forth in his armchair.

“This seems to be a painful memory for you.”, she said.

He nodded, not managing to look at her.

“You don’t have to tell this just now, but when I know it becomes easier for me to find ways to help you.”

“I have to tell this, right? Then it is easier to just do it now straightforward.”, he breathed in deeply, tried to start, but no sound escaped him and he started again and finally managed: “I collapsed in one of those meetings.”, he felt as if he would not get enough air, of course he knew that he was in the present, but it did not feel like it, he felt as confused and scared and disgusted at himself as back then, as the medics had grabbed him and pulled him out of the room, as Horde Prime glared at him out of four eyes. He would never forget the look on his face.

“I had seen signs before, that there was some sort of defect in my cloning, especially at these not healing and continuously growing wound on my lower arms that had appeared without any cause… and at how shaky I often was. I was so selfish to not report myself to the medics, but I thought if I would just work hard enough… I was too weak. They found out that it had well progressed, mostly on my muscles, and so Horde Prime sent me to the front so that these resources would be used the best way they still could.”

“You are talking about resources, but that is you you’re talking about.”, she noticed very calmly, but there was a sense of horror in her voice. “He sent you to die just because you are disabled.”

There was this word again. Not defect, disabled. It sounded still negative and judgmental, but not nearly as harsh as defect. He did not know what to think about that.

“What else should he do? Waste resources on a brother who does not work as he should?”, he automatically said.

She signed. “I know you will not be able to believe that just yet, and it will need time and work until you are, because these sort of believes go very deep – but this is not right. Throwing someone away for their disability, something they are not responsible for, is not a right thing to do. And also not seeing someone just as resource. You are more than that.”

It hurt hearing that, but in an odd, good way. He felt his eyes burn, and before he could do anything, he felt himself crying. It was so humiliating and dangerous, but she did not use it for anything.

“Thank you.”, he stammered. She handed him a tissue.

“Now, sadly this feeling of not being worth anything until you manage to do what everybody does, and as if you should not exist is also a problem for disabled people here on Etheria”, he thought at Entrapta, “because this sort of believes, of discrimination, also exists here. But from what I heard about the Galactic Horde this was a whole other level of dehumanizing.”

He just nodded, because he did not know what else to say. Then he told her the whole story. It was faltering but once he started he could not stop anymore, and it almost felt freeing.

After that, she continued with her basic questions.

“You are cloned from Horde Primes modified DNA? No parents in the classical sense.”

“Yes.”

“Gender?”

“I don’t know.”, this was also something he never really had thought about. In the Galactic Horde they were just addressed how Horde Prime wanted, and here on Etheria he somehow aligned mostly with what they interpreted as being a man and so they used he-pronouns on him, but this was all he knew. There were so many nuances, and also several genders he had never even met someone of, he still did not fully understood it. “I… didn’t understand anything of it as I landed here, so I went with what others said. Calling me ‘he’ does feel fitting, but I have no idea if it says something deeper than this. All I can say is that I don’t fully align with the female gender and pronouns.”

She again wrote something down.

“Again, this is something you don’t have to answer if you are uncomfortable. Sexual orientation?”

“I don’t know. But… most likely… bisexual?”

Her pen rushed over the pad. Then she looked at the digital clock on the shelf, and said: “Now we took longer on this than I planned, we will do the tests next time, now is the time for this issue you said earlier you wanted to talk about?”

“Right”, he wished he had said nothing. He did not want to talk about this, both because it was so damn personal, and because it felt as if baring yet another defect of him.

There was a awkward silence. Somewhen, he broke under her questioning gaze and said: “I… Entrapta… who brought me out of the hivemind… made me realize my past… we…”, how was it so hard to describe their relationship? Calling her girlfriend or lover felt far too simplistic and ordinary for how unique and deep it was, “she’s my partner. She…”, how could he possibly say it. If felt as if it was stuck in his mouth again, and he forced against it, until he blurted out: “She wants me sexually.”

“And you feel romantic, but not sexual desire for her?”

“No, I’m not… I’m not asexual. I think? The problem is I want her too.”

“So this is your first time having sexual relations?”

Taken aback by her straightforwardness, he was to stunned to speak. He felt his face go red. He was over thirty, he should not have been a virgin. He should also not have these urges at all.

“Yes.”

“The first sexual encounter is a very emotional and often difficult step for every person, even if you were not as completely unprepared for it by your culture.”

“But I shouldn’t want this!”, he finally said.

She did not object nor agree as he had feared. She simply asked: “Why is this so?”

“I am a Horde Clone. Sexuality is not for us. It’s selfish. Impure. It is sin.”

“Do you feel the same way about Entrapta being sexual?”

“No, of course not.”, he thought at how horny she was and how much joy she seemed to get from her sexuality. “It’s good for her, I can see it. She deserves it.”

“Why don’t you deserve to feel good?”

“Because I am ugly and deformed and defect. I know this. I don’t fit into how both a clone nor a handsom Etherian man should look like. I am disgusting. I don’t want her to see this withering, wrong body, I want to spare her from that. I am not worth it. I am not even a good person.”

“These are a lot of negative assumptions about yourself.”

He nodded, because he did not know what else to do.

“Has she said that to you?”

“Of course not. Horde Prime has. Entrapta says again and again that my imperfections are beautiful, that I am beautiful, but I can not believe her. I am disgusting, I know it.”

She simply ignored the last part: “Has anybody else ever said something like this to you?”

“Catra has. But apart from that…. But if they knew, they would…”

“You can’t know that.”, she broke him off, and then summarized: “You feel guilty for desiring sexual contact because the religious dogmas of your culture deem it impure, and because you feel self-hate because of your disability.”

He nodded.

“What do I do about it?”

“First of all, don’t force yourself to anything. I know you likely feel as if you hold your girlfriend back, as if she owes it, but she surely will not want you to force yourself to anything and that you feel bad. My second advice would be to go in small steps, so that it can get more normal gradually. And for your body hatred… Are there any activities that let you gently feel your body?”

All he felt of his body was pain and strained muscles.

“Swimming? Gymnastics? Masturbation, if you feel up to it?”, he blushed again. “Since these assumptions are anchored so deep in yourself it will take long to overcome them, but these things could help you create a positive connection with your body.”

He nodded.

She looked at the clock again.

“I worry that our hour is over. Next Friday same time?”, and with that, he left the room, feeling something strange he could not even classify. Vulnerable but oddly hopeful.

Entrapta waited for him on the agreed meeting place. Right down the street, there was a street market, and people of all species were busy between the stands.

She nearly ran towards him, eyes wide: “How was it?”

“Exhausting.”

She immediately noticed that he was too exhausted to go into detail, and asked instead: “Do you want something from that fruit stand?”

“Why?”

“Well, my fathers always let me buy something nice to eat after I had therapy, they said that would show my body that everything is okay and I am not in a fight. And you like fruit, do you?”

“Yes.”, he looked at the stand again, wary to have to interact with Etherians he did not know in a situation he was not familiar with. He felt far to exhausted for it. Even if they would not recognize him (Entrapta could hold him and other clones apart through his slightly more hollow cheeks and the way he moved by now, but even she had taken quite some time for this).

She followed his gaze, looked back to him, then to the fruit stand, then back, and then seemed to understand: “Oh, you can say me what you want and I buy it, and you can eat it on the flight back.”

A few minutes later she came back with a bag full of dried fruits.

“What do you want to do for the rest of the day now?”, she asked as they flew back towards Crypto Castle, and as he nibbled on a red fruit that was slightly softer than ration bars but tasked so much sweeter.

“Just what is scheduled for today.”, what did she mean with this question.

“No, you can take a day off, first therapy hour, that is so exhausting, you need to relax. It gets lesser exhausting later, but today… you need a break.”

He wanted to argue with her, but he truly had no energy for it.

“We can cuddle and watch a movie if you want. Or if people are to much, you can be alone for as long as you want to and watch a documentary or something that calms you.”

Cuddling with her sounded wonderful, but right now… She was right, people were to exhausting right now, even her. “I think I have to spent some time alone to recharge.”, he said, happy that she they understood each other this good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still writing the next chapter, so I have no idea how long this will take. But since in two days I am finished with my lab rotation and have more time, it will probably be faster
> 
> Also sorry for that negativity about Catra, I read that most people want her and Hordak to be friends... but no matter how hard I try, this does not sit right with me. He deserves better friends than her, and he has all the rights to hate her, it would feel out of character to me if he forgives her like everybody else for no reason, in fact.
> 
>  _Edit 07.09_ : I feel so bad about this, but due to all the fandom drama and the stress it creates for me I just can't write right now. I hope that it gets better soon, but the truth is that I don't know how long it will take me to recover


	4. Memories Up Close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: This chapter is psychologically quite heavy, including a trauma flashback, depression, suicidal thoughts, discussion of a suicide attempt and memories of suicide baiting

She had thought she would manage this. After all, she had been saved, it had turned out that it had been just Catra wanting to discard her because she was in the way of her plans to harm Adora, not Hordak actually hating her. She had left Beast Island, and this time she would be able to leave at any moment. She had Hordak and Scorpia and Bow, she was not alone. And yet…

The closer the date they had set for their mission of rehabilitating Beast Island came, the more nervous she got. It had looked so far away, until suddenly it wasn’t, and panic burned in her so high she wanted to scream, but she had to be calm. This was unreasonable, just another way she overreacted and her emotions being in the way.

She wished she would not feel so much.

Then the day came, and somehow she managed to put up a blank face and follow Hordak to the half Horde shuttle, half Etherian tech ship they had scavenged. She felt as if she could barely breathe. Everything was to dull and to sharp at the same time and the feeling that she had to scream was so strong that she could not speak. Could barely think.

She had not had these for a long, long time, safe from being on Beast Island, but well, there it had been justified at least, but she sensed that she was at the verge of one of these horrible moments where everything became too much and to painful and she could not think or speak anymore and every single moment with another person in the room was just pure horror. As a child and teenager she had always thought these were just her being too weak and her brain working wrong, only in her twenties she had learned that there was actually a word for it. But she had thought she had become strong enough, experienced enough to avoid these. Well, she was not.

She sat with Hordak in the cockpit of the ship, to exhausted from trying to sound normal for him to do anything but watch how the ocean flew past. She had been unconscious for most of the transport to Beast Island thanks to Catras attack, but she had awoken some when in what must be the last quarter of it, tied up, hair bound in knots so that she could not move it and with all-consuming pain on her back where the stun-baton had burned her. She remembered how she had wanted to find out what was happening but could not move, had no tools to free herself, so she had just stared at the ocean.

Rationally she knew of course that this was in the past, that this was over. It did not feel like it.

She was cold, her breath came flat and panting, not nearly enough, so that she thought she would suffocate every second. She knew that she was sent to Beast Island. She knew that she had failed again. That Hordak and Scorpia and Catra had given her up because she had been so wrong and annoying and childish. She knew that she would die there.

The jagged dark red cliffs with the blue shining lines came into sight, and her stomach turned. She dug her fingers into the armrest of her chair to not make a sound, to stay seated, to not try to do something, escape. She had to stay strong, she could not do anything that would make her to difficult, to annoying. She remembered a leash out of vines and being treated like a small child or a animal. She was not really a person.

Hordak said something about going outside, taking their sensors and tools, and she said that the signal would not be able to penetrate the hull of the ship but could reach them outside, however it would not be strong at the edge of the island where they were. It sounded so distant.

She barely noticed how they went outside, how they took their equipment. There only was this dull, suffocating feeling.

“Entrapta, are you okay?”

“Yes, of course.”, she automatically replied. Never show them how you really feel. Never show them weakness.

Her fingers trembled too much for the setup and she did not manage to concentrate enough to finish it, but she did not ask for help. She had to finish this. She had to be useful. This was all she was good for, if she did not succeed in this, she would be worth nothing. She had to manage this. She was not able to breathe. Her muscles clenched so hard that her whole body hurt.

As they had finally setup their basic sensors she lead Hordak around, somehow managed to sound cheerful. But she must have slipped up, because he said: “I can see that you are not okay.”

Ice-cold fear. She wanted to run but knew it was pointless and silly.

“Even when you don’t have your visor down, you’re face becomes empty when you are upset. Like a mask. And there is something artificial in your voice.”

Panic rushed through her. She felt how she trembled and hated her body for this. Why give her away like this.

“I can do this. I know I am annoying and worthless but I can do this. Just let me do this. I am sorry that I failed you like this, but I can make it better, I can be normal if I try. Please don’t give me up.”

She had such problems getting air that she had to keep her mouth wide open the whole time, her chest rising and falling in so fast and abrupt turns that it hurt, and she felt how the fear and panic were showing in her eyes, but she had no strength to control her expression anymore.

Hordaks expression hurt: “You are not annoying and worthless. What… what happened to you.”, and then, “Its more than this place, isn’t it? It’s how they all treated you.”

“I am sorry. I am just too weak. Please just let me try to be better one more time.”

There were tears in his eyes now. She could not bear it. Without any strength left and any way to control it she felt herself tear up as well.

He came closer to her. Why didn’t he go? She had no worth anymore like this.

“Is it okay to touch you?” 

She was not worth being touched, she was not worth feeling happy, but she longed for his firm, warm touch so much, so she just nodded.

He pulled her to him, and as soon as she felt his familiar, warm form against her she broke, and sobbed and sobbed in sheer horror and panic.

“I’m here.”, he whispered, and: “I will never push you aside. I should not have listened to Catra.”

And then, as her sobs became lesser, not because it was better but because she was just so exhausted: “This is not the signal, it is the memory. I saw soldiers who experienced especially horrible battles have these. I… I have this myself, sometimes. It’s a flashback.”

“What do you do against it?”

“I… it works not to hundred percent but just gradually, but when I have these I find it useful to focus on details of my actual surroundings and sensations. Maybe even list them if thinking them gets lost in your other thoughts.”

She did that. He smiled when she mentioned the firmness of his chest and his hands on her back and his scent and the white of his face and the red of his eyes.

“It’s not enough. I still feel as if this is when I arrived here.”

“List the date. Try to remember your brain that it is today, not back then.”

She did that. Her breath got a bit calmer, but that was all.

“And pain. Pain can partially snap you out of it.”

“But… self-harm would be another problem, would it?”

“Not self-harm. Pinch over your upper lip and under your nose. It’s very sensitive and hurts quite much. It helps to bring you back to reality.”

She did. Pain shot through her skin, and the dark fog in her mind lifted a bit indeed.

“Let us go back to the ship. We can calibrate the rest of the sensors from there.”, he said, and she followed, too exhausted to come up with something better.

She only really realized how much the surroundings of Beast Island strained her as she stepped into the ship and finally only saw smooth metallic surfaces anymore. She could feel her muscles softening so much that it hurt, still tense but not as painful anymore. The sensation of being raw and unprotected stayed. Another memory resurfaced. Of giving up and roots gliding over her skin and dark, hopeless peace.

“I tried to kill myself.”

The horror and pain in his face was more than she could bear, and she wished she had not said that, but she had.

“Here?”

“Yes.”, her voice sounded strangely flat, “I don’t remember most of my time here, only glimpses, and even these are blurry and unreal, and I am glad about this, so this might not even be the only time, but it’s the only time I remember. I had hold on until then by focusing so much on exploring the technology here that I did not notice the pain too much, just going on a little bit longer and then a little bit longer. Oddly, it was when Bow and Adora and Swift Wind came. Maybe they reminded me at that I really had no actual place among them. I don’t know.

The signal reacts to ones fears and dread. So when you give up, the Island feels it and… transforms you. I would not have been brave enough for this otherwise. I just… realized that I don’t belong anywhere. Here was the most where I belonged.”, the feeling came back so strongly that it brought tears in her eyes. She tried to continue telling. Tried not to sink into Hordaks arms sobbing. “So I just… chose to stay here. I remember how peaceful I felt. How glad I was that it was finally over. That I would not have to fight anymore.”

“I should have been there for you. I should have saved you!”

“I was so close, Hordak. And I am so sure that none of them would have actually cared. They would have been shocked, but they would not have been cared about me, only about my technological knowledge.”

“I would have cared.”, he pulled her close to him, and she could feel that he was crying, warm tears falling on her own face and shoulders.

She should have said that she knew, but it still felt so unreal, so hard to believe, so she just mumbled: “Thank you.”

She did not quite know why she told him this, but it felt as if it had to be out: “I heard that so often when I was younger. I never was in a public school, but I was at gatherings of nobility. Especially after my fathers died. ‘Just kill yourself, nobody would miss you anyway’. I never really knew what to answer on that. It went subtler in university, but it never went away.”

“That’s so brutal”, he hissed.

“People are brutal. But the worst thing is, a part of me still thinks I deserve this or to be leashed and treated like a dog.”

“I know.”, she could hear that he spoke from his own darkness.

She leaned into him, shivering with exhaustion, and sobbed a bit more, until she felt only raw and weak anymore but not so hopeless.

He did a good job distracting her, always keeping the windows opaque, asking her this or that about the sensors and telling her details about the Hordes Faster-Than-Light-Travel system. She was not hungry but she forced herself to gulp town some tiny avocado bread pieces.

Finally evening of her first day was there, and she already dreaded to go to sleep, alone in her small room. She would lie awake and think the whole night.

“Ahm… can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

“Of course.”

He snuggled up to her, arms around her, and she was too exhausted to feel any sexual feelings and he did not attempt to. Feeling him so warm and alive beside her, it made the memories seem a bit lesser present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am finally able to upload again! I have three more chapters prepared by now (I decided to break the chapters down in smaller bits than previously), after that I will most likely need a longer break between uploading again, but we will see. I wondered if I should wait with uploading until I have finished the whole story, but knowing me, this just takes to long. 
> 
> For the next three chapters the upload will take place around 6 pm European standard time
> 
> As always, I am really happy about comments


	5. Copper Sulfate Pentahydrate Blue

The next day, Entrapta still seemed distracted and uncharacteristically quiet, but not so awfully hollow, her face a mask, anymore. They tried their best to only go out for what was absolutely necessary, and do most from the ship. After lunch, she lead him to a clearing in the wild, dark red forest and started telling details from her time here. How she had kept herself busy, where she had found eatable berries and roots and grains, where she had slept. The horror only occasionally crept into her voice.

He tried his best not to think that he should have killed Catra the day she first lied to him and rescued Entrapta.

They went through a patch of lighter forest, and reached another clearing. He could see something vibrantly blue behind it and as they stepped out from the undergrowth, he saw that it was a small lake.

The tension seemed to have left Entrapta almost entirely by now.

“This is where I cleaned myself.”, she pointed at the lake. It looked both eerie and beautiful with its unnaturally blue water, more like a copper sulfat pentahydrate solution than water, and the dark red and pink roots surrounding it.

She contemplated a moment, then she said, and there was something teasing in her voice he could not quite place: “I think taking a swim would be relaxing after this day? Your ports are waterproof, right? Unless your trauma from the torture on Horde Primes ship extends to water of course…”

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”, he asked a bit overwhelmed, how could this have taken this turn?

“There are big, carnivoruous sea monsters in there, but they only come out at night, it’s not late enough for them. And some of the water plants try to entangle you, but they are actually meant for small fish and pretty weak, you can easily rip them out. So no, not dangerous. I swam in there so often.”, her voice broke for a moment, so shortly that he was not really sure if he had actually heard it at all.

“I think I have no problems with water. Not when its blue like this, not green.”

“Good, then…”, there was this tremble in her voice again.

But he had no time to think about it further because then she already pushed her overall down to her hips and pulled her shirt over her head.

His heartbeat seemed to end up somewhere in his loins. Her back was beautiful. Her muscles… He couldn’t help but watch them move, shift as she finished wriggling out of the shirt and let it drop to the floor. The strength…

How could he hold up with such beauty? No, don’t think like this, she found him attractive for some reason, she would not have asked that if she would not have been okay with seeing him scarcely clad.

She turned a bit as she was out of her overall too and laid it to the ground, and now he was able to see the rest of her too. She was bare except for a plain white bra and a just as unadorned white panty. He couldn’t help but stare at her wiry arms, the arch of her collar bone, her slightly rounded but firm looking stomach. Her breasts. It felt like was caught in the forms and shades, interrupted by the white of the bra. How could this be so completely different from accidentally catching a glimpse of one of his soldiers when they were changing their armor?

His gaze slipped down from her waist to her broad hips and her muscular thighs, trying to not get caught on the form of her groin and look out if there was something he could see already now.

His heart beat faster than it should.

She smiled. It looked almost triumphant.

“Do you don’t want to?”

“I…”, he didn’t wanted to show his disgusting, defect body to her. But he also wanted to do that with her, and he had a sense that it would feel freeing afterwards. He stared, and the words wouldn’t come. For a moment both was possible, then he said: “…actually I do.” And he started taking off the armor, gently setting the parts down on a patch of grass-like plant. She came to help him, and he had to do his best to not let his breath catch as he felt her barely-clad body so close to him. For the first time he was glad about the pain of unplucking his armor, because it was just enough to interrupt the careful and yet strong touch of her fingers so that he would not show… physical reactions.

The armor was gone. Weak and shaky he stood before her, but it didn’t matter anymore.

He breathed in deeply, then brought his too heavy feeling hands up to his neck and pulled the collar of his dress over his head. Loosened the ornaments around his hips, and then let the whole dress slip to the floor.

A sharp breath from Entrapta. Warm air and sunlight hit his bare skin. He felt so vulnerable, exposed.

And yet, as he finally dared to look into Entraptas face and notice the focus, the primal hunger in her eyes, he was not sure if this was a bad thing.

“You look… very fascinating.”, her eyes were half lidden and there was this smile again, and her voice sounded deeper and rougher than normally.

Heat flickered in his stomach, and then settled deeper.

“We should go now. I can’t stand like this for especially long before it gets uncomfortable.”, he tried to save himself from an embarrassing situation. Surely if she wanted to try to be intimate with him again, there would be better places than this. Would he even be ready for it now? He honestly did not know.

She smiled, but lighter this time, and walked to the waterside, and then in. She hissed because it was so cold.

He climbed down the riverside. It would have been absolutely no problem with the armor on, but without it took long and he felt as if he would fall at any moment several times.

He heard a splash and as he looked up she had turned and gestured to him to follow her. Damn. Water glistered on her skin everywhere below her waist, making it shimmer. Through the cold, her nipples had grown hard and pressed trough the fabric of the bra, he could clearly see them. And her panty… She had been into the water up to the waist, so it was soaked with water already, and since it was white, it had become partially transparent with the wetness. He could see the shape of her lilac-colored pubic hair…

Don’t get hard now. Damn.

He wanted her. Fuck, he wanted her. A part of him wished she would just take him here and there.

But he tried to breathe evenly, and stepped into the water.

At least that took care of the “showing physical signs” problem, because it was so icy cold that everything of him contracted with the coldness, including that.

Entrapta was already into the water till the waist, her hair floating around her on the water surface. It seemed to have changed color and structure on contact with the water, it was a bit darker and even more shiny. Then she breathed in deeply and jumped headfirst into the water, and dived down. The hair floated a bit further on the surface, then it followed.

She emerged twenty meters further, gasping for air.

“I should have brought my swim goggles.”, she said, and then, “Just jump in, the coldness gets better once you’re in.”

The sensation of how the water reached his hips, then his waist, was definitely not nice. But there was something soothing about the pressure.

He breathed in deeply, then jumped with a plunge into the water. Icy coldness against his head, and bright blue surrounding him. He dived a few meters. He had not remembered how nice the sensation of the water against all of him and how calming the sunbeams through the water were.

The water took the ever present pressure of gravity from his limbs, and replaced it with the much more gentler weight of the liquid around. Sure, there was resistance, but that was to expect due to the much higher density of a liquid compared to air, and overall moving through the water was so easy, much easier than he would have expected. Almost as if his body was not defective.

Blurred, he could see water plants underneath him. Even like this, they looked fascinating.

“You can dive really long! I almost was worried.”, Entrapta said as he broke through the water surface again. How different she looked when her hair was soaked.

“We are engineered to function for a while without oxygen.”, he said.

Her eyes glinted: “Can you tell me more about it?”

They swam near the bank of the sea, talking about it. As she noticed how easy it was for Hordak to swim and as he told her that he enjoyed it, she even began to make plans already: “We could built a large swimming pool in Cryto Castle and in the summer we could go to the quarry pond, it is nearby, so that you can train your muscles without straining them. I read that this is so helpful when people lost muscle mass!”

As Entrapta said that she was getting exhausted, he only felt slightly spent, but could continue if he wanted, despite not wearing the armor. Seemed as if this was really something he could get used to.

Laughing, they made their way back to their ship. Entrapta stole glimpses of his body, and as he noticed and their gazes met, she just smiled. It was not uncomfortable anymore, it made him feel… tingely? And he himself couldn’t help but notice how perfectly the water beads clung to her skin, how smooth it looked, how much of it was exposed.

At the corridor where the paths to their rooms diverged, they stopped. For a moment both was possible, that they would just part ways and dry up and go to sleep, or that they would walk into the same room and help each other out of the rest of their clothes and lick the water from their skin and make love.

Entrapta hesitated, her gaze flickered in a uncharacteristic fashion. He wanted to close the distance between them and pull her to him and kiss her hard, but he felt as if frozen. It suddenly seemed like such a huge thing to do.

Then she took a step forward and lifted herself up with her hair, and her lips were against his. Only the coldness from the evaporating water and how exhausted his body was prevented it from directly showing just how much he enjoyed this as he felt her almost fully bare skin against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, almost forgot to upload
> 
> For those of you who are not chemistry students: Copper Sulfate Pentahydrate is one of the nicer looking chemical compounds, it has a really pretty shade of bright blue, in water it colorizes it a almost unreal looking blue, and dry it makes nice crystals. But it’s also toxic. Not toxic enough to kill you, but enough to make you nauseous and retch and generally have a not a good time. I just thought this ambivalence would be a nice metaphor for returning to Beast Island. 
> 
> Also I am really not sure if this is to fast after Entraptas breakdown in the previous chapter
> 
> I love to read comments!


	6. Urge

So many sensations, all at once. The softness of his lips and his tongue against hers, his lean, firm body, his bare skin against hers, so smooth, the cold droplets of water. It was so much, but it was good. It had never felt this good.

She felt his hands on her bare back, soft and shaky because he was out of armor, but it still sent tingles down her spine. She kissed him even deeper, and oh, he signed against her mouth.

She was all too aware that apart from the band over his chest and the tight black briefs, he was naked, and that he was naked underneath these, and the thought sent a shock through her sex.

She wanted to press him against the wall and see if he got hard this time too.

Then suddenly, the gravitas of what she wanted to do reached her, and she hesitated. Was Hordak even ready for this? With all the psychological problems he had about this, she didn’t want to go to fast. She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.

She parted from him, breathing hard. He looked just as aroused and out of breath, yeah, but also a bit overwhelmed. She wished she could tell if that was good overwhelmed or bad overwhelmed.

They just stood there, staring at each other. Then she said: “Sleep well.” and went to her room.

“Sleep well too.”, she heard him say.

She let her wet underwear fall to the floor, towled herself, and then wrung out her hair as good as it was possible with the sheer mass of it. Naked, she sat down on the bed.

She almost did not even have to think to grab her breasts and knead, her nipples already soft with arousal.

The raw, vulnerable feeling still lurked at the edge of her consciousness, but she tried her best to not look at it, and continued. It still felt too close when she was alone like this, and she wished Hordak had signaled her that he wanted to follow her, not just because he was so damn sexy in just his underwear.

She breathed in deeply, and concentrated on the throbbing in her sex. The memory of how smooth and warm his naked skin had felt. Of his tongue deep in her mouth.

She traced softly over her sex, over the rough hair there, teased herself. Her body responded with a wave of heat, urging her to do more. She played with that heat, caressed up and down the inside of her thigh. Imagined that it was Hordak who was touching her, these gorgeous hands on her. His claws. Oh his claws… Fuck, when he grazed over her skin with the tip of these claws, no matter how lightly, it felt as if it left traces of electricity and ended up directly in her sex.

Now she had the vivid image of these gorgeous, large but slender hands on her thighs. She gasped. His bony wrists and his lower arms… She had been so shocked by his lower arms as she had seen them for the first time, but now she barely saw the gap in them, only how beautiful the patterns of blue and white on them were. This was just Hordak. She smiled, and warmth went through her chest.

She imagined him fully naked in her bed, imagined climbing over him, his eyes so large with submissive lust. She had noticed that it seemed to arouse him when she was dominant towards him. She was not quite sure if she had the confidence to actually go through with this, but she definitely liked the image of him giving himself to her, and her being the strong one, the powerful one. It made her loins throb even harder.

Hordak, so very willing underneath her. She panted. The pressure between her legs hurt almost by now, and she finally pushed her fingers against her clitoris. She was slick and wet there. She imagined how he would feel feeling that for the first time, how surprised and turned on he would be.

She moaned and rubbed harder against herself. Her hips bucked into her touch.

His naked body against hers, skin against skin… She started thrusting her hips hard against her fingers. She closed her eyes and imagined him watching his fingers on her with wide eyes, lips parted, lean chest rising and falling in heavy breaths. Fuck, she wanted him so much.

Memories of how he had moaned and gasped when she kissed his neck came to her, and she hummed. He made the most beautiful sounds when he was aroused, his voice so deep and silken with the more primal sound of his lust just underneath. The thought made her sex throb even harder.

And his scent… Ozone and metal and something rough and angular and organic, so faint that she could only sense it when she was quite close to him, she always had to watch out to not notice it too much because if it would make her wet instantly. Now she remembered every detail of this delicious scent, imagined pressing her face to Hordaks neck and breathing it in deeply, and rutted hard against her fingers.

Her breath was getting flat and fast already.

She slipped her fingers inside her – damn she felt so wet – and splayed them out, pressed them against the spots she knew felt so fucking good, and imagined his slender, dark blue fingers inside the dark rose of her entrance. The graphic picture let her whimper.

Suddenly she remembered that advice she had given him about masturbation, and how he had said that he had done this. She had watched enough porn to be able to very detailed imagine how he would look like touching himself, stroking himself with both hands, these wiry thighs parted, eyes closed.

She brought her fingers back to her clitoris.

She wondered how it would feel if he came against her body. But she could very well imagine how it would look like…

At the first stroke the pleasure unloaded. Her body flinched up, and she could feel how her juices outrightly gushed out of her, the sensation so fucking good.

It slowly receeded, and for a moment she laid there and panted. Then she sat up.

There was a quite large stain under her hips, only slightly narrower than them. Damn, she had forgotten to put a towel underneath her in case of squirting, for exactly this reason. But she would deal with this later. She was still horny, and it felt as if the orgasm had not satisfied her, but rather only increased her hunger. Something more thorough was needed.

Her gaze went to her bag, and she realized that she had actually packed in her favorite dildo. She remembered that during the process of packing in, she just had done it out of reflex and then realized that she most likely would not need it, but also did not had the energy to pull it out of the bag again.

She cleaned her fingers on the sheet, then picked it out from under her clothes and a few books in her bag. The glass was pleasantly cool against her fingers. She traced the ridges of glass on its shaft for a moment, then brought its blunt tip up to her sex. A soft moan escaped her as she pressed it inside and felt her body widen around it, surrounding it. Oh the pressure…

Experimentally, she thrust it in and out a few times and the pressure inside her already boiled so high that she was panting again.

She rolled on her stomach, closed her eyes. Imagined that it was his cock she was around, that he was lying under her. She had never really been that interested in vaginal penetration, but with him, the thought of straddling these broad hips and riding him was very, very alluring.

With slow, drawn out rolling of her hips she moved against the dildo, didn’t used her hands anymore to push it in and out of her but hold it still. So much slower but sensual like this. The pressure washed over her in waves now, rose tantalizingly slowly.

Hordaks heavy breathing would go over into low growls, his hands on her hips, claws digging into her flesh. She would kiss his neck, make him moan harder, move against him, then press her teeth into the smooth skin over his neck tendon. Mark him.

A throaty moan escaped her and she moved faster.

He would rasp her name in this gorgeous voice of his, and she would kiss him hard, and run her hands up and down his perfect imperfect body. His face would contort with pleasure, eyes closed, lips parted, his red teeth bared.

The thought of him inside her, how their bodies joined, brought the pressure boiling high. She felt it built, gasped for air, moaning, her muscles already trembling.

And then it unloaded. She shook hard, actually screamed out.

With a sign, she rolled to the side, still panting for air, and slowly pulled the dildo out of her. Even just this movement sent pleasant aftershocks through her. She hummed. She loved how peaceful and pleasantly exhausted she finally felt.

_

He had spent way to long with water on his skin, that, through the energy it took from its surroundings in the process of evaporating, cooled him considerably. He only noticed it after the... distraction of a nearly naked Entrapta kissing him and pressing her body to him was gone, but now he was freezing.

He pulled the rest of his clothing off – oddly, his naked body did not bother him as much as normally – towled himself, put the nightgown on and, now that nobody would see him, curled himself up under all the blankets he had in the room.

He had just started to read a report and warmed up a bit as she heard a low gasp that was definitely Entraptas from the other side of the wall. Without even having to think he knew that it was pleasure, that she was pleasuring herself. Immediately he was hard.

This was sinful, this was selfish, this was disrespectful and gross, to enjoy her pleasures like this. This was one of these situations where he could get to know his own body better, feel it and thus accept it. He should touch himself. He wanted to touch himself. But even just thinking at it made him feel like a horrible person, so primitive and wrong and against Horde Primes doctrines. To give in to these primitive urges, that just showed again how wrong he was.

He laid there, unable to do anything and unable to not listen to the lustful gasps. The knowledge that Entrapta was touching herself because seeing him, feeling him just wearing his underwear had aroused her so much went through him with a shock. Instinctively his hand almost went to his crotch and he only in the last moment could dig it into the mattress instead.

He should do this. Entrapta had said he should do it, his therapist had said he should do it. But he did not want to feel this gross and tainted again. It just seemed to wrong to do it.

For a moment there was quiet, and he already half hoped and half dreaded that she had stopped. Then another moan, and this time it did not stop, but was followed by more and more moans with every breath. She was getting louder and sounded increasingly desperate.

Suddenly a very graphic image came to his mind, her, naked, skin glistering with sweat and flushed, head thrown back, these muscular thighs parted to give access to her glistering, wet sex. How she would flip experienced fingers over herself. How would it feel to touch her there?

He had to muffle his desperate growl in his pillow. He was rubbing his loins against the mattress. It only increased the pressure.

It hurt. He needed release. He couldn’t.

He heard her whimper, loudly, unrestrained, and instinctively knew that she was close to orgasm. He pressed his claws into the bedsheet. He had not touched himself in any way, and yet he was breathing hard.

A throaty moan, almost a growl, long and primal. He couldn’t help the image of her throwing her head back to moan, of her body arching up, of her fingers glistering with her juices. His hips thrust forward, regardless of that there was nothing to thrust against.

He rolled on his back, feeling almost as spent as if it had been him who had come. At least it would be over now.

But after not even a minute, he heard her gasp again, and this time there was also the squeaking of the bed moving. He did not know enough about masturbation to understand what exactly she was doing that was so rough and physical that it made the bed squeak, but even just knowing of how intensely she was doing this, the strength and desire behind it made his loins throb even harder.

Don’t listen to it, concentrate on the reports. But he had read not even a full sentence as the next sound brought him back. The _stamina_ …

He tried to breathe normally, to no effect. Pressure rolled higher in him with every gasp and moan from the other side of the wall. He was so close to touching himself, but he hold himself back.

It took so long. It was awful, it was wonderful.

Finally, Entraptas high pitched wailing cut through the wall. Oh, she screamed, she actually screamed. It sounded beautiful.

After that, there was quiet.

He thought he would be able to contine reading now, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t stop thinking about that he now knew what his powerful, strong, beautiful Entrapta sounded like when she came. Of her beautiful moans. He was still achingly hard.

He rolled over again, and could not quite bring himself to touch himself but also could not stop thinking of her. To stirred up to sleep, he simply rolled over and over and tried not to rut into the mattress, and slowly got more and more desperate with desire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yet another masturbation scene... But don't worry, from this point on there will be, well, not yet full sex scenes but definitely more real and more sex than this. 
> 
> Please comment, I love comments


	7. Flock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought long if I should put this warning on the whole fic, and decided against it because its really just this scene, not the whole fic dealing with it. But there will be a rape scene. Its just a nightmare, and not graphic, but please skip the whole first scene if this triggers you (containing the nightmare and talking about it)  
> I was not sure if I should include this scene at all, I really don’t want it to feel titillating or glorifying, but also it felt very natural that Hordak would have nightmares like this considering what was hinted in canon.

He was with Entrapta, basked in the hotness of her body and the musk and sweetness scent of her arousal, but the scenery changed. The cool green and white and the smoothness of the walls already sent panic down his nervous system. Then he felt hands on his waist.

He knew instantaneously that it were not Entraptas hands. To possessive.

His instincts screamed to run, but he was out of his armor and his legs felt too shaky.

“Little Brother”, Horde Prime said and caressed the bare skin of his flank with cold tenderness that made fear raise in him, “how do you think sins this large could possibly be permitted for you?”

“I thought if they do it it would be okay, I felt like I needed it to heal, I haven’t really done anything yet…”, he hasted out, sheer panic, he knew it would not help.

“Your body is decaying and yet your flesh is this hungry. Curious.”, he sounded almost bored, but there was a primal rasp in it that scared him even more.

Horde Primes right hand wandered over his chest, to his neck, lazily traced the tendon there. It tingled in a grotesque mirroring of how it tingled when Entrapta touched him there. Suddenly, the talon pressed into his skin. He felt blood.

“You have no right to heal. I did not gave you permission. You are selfish for seeking healing. Wasting resources. Do you really think you disgusting, defect mess could be worth something?”, Horde Prime hissed. Hordak felt his body shake with fear, felt tears in his eyes. He would not give him the gratification.

“You wear quite the reavealing dress.”, Horde Prime purred, calm again. Hordak flinched, tried to get out of the touch as he traced the cut-out on his waist, but he just grabbed his other side and hold him in place. His chest pressed against his back. To close. To damn close.

“Do you truly think your little Princess could find you desirable like this? That the tantalization of your dress will make her not notice how defect your body underneath is?”, the hand touched the side of his thigh and travelled upwards. Stop it, please stop it. He wished he could be strong enough, brave enough, to fight back. Instead he was frozen in fear.

“What do you expect to happened if she takes you?”, his voice was a little bit breathier now. “You do imagine that she desires you as you desire her, that she is tight and wet around you. Hmm, Little Brother, you can’t hide your fantasies from me. Does it affect you already? Did you sink this low?”

With ice-cold horror, Hordak realized that he was rubbing his hips against his ass. The hand on his thighs was under his skirt already, and now he grabbed it with both hands and tried to pull it away, but he was not strong enough, he just was not strong enough.

“Do you imagine to satisfy her? You will not be able to, you are too defect, your body is not enduring enough, but you imagine it still, do you? Greedy Little Brother. You think that you can serve her, when in reality you will only ever serve me.”, his ragged breath was too hot on his neck, then his tongue was on his skin, hot and disgustingly wet, circled the port. Shivers ran down his spine. He felt close to retching.

“If you want sin this badly”, Horde Prime moaned against his ear, “I will give you sin in the only way you are allowed.”

And his hand pressed between his thighs.

With a panicked gasp, Hordak awoke. His whole body was shaking and covered in cold sweat, and there was so much panic that he needed several seconds to realize where he was. Entrapta beside him stirred, but his heart had not stopped racing. At one blow, the nausea was back. His stomach turned.

He stumbled out of the bed, felt a disgusting taste in his mouth already, ran towards the door. Then his illness decided to strike, and his legs gave way from under him. Shivering and retching he fell on the floor. The floor was wonderful cool.

“Hordak?”, he needed several seconds even after she grabbed him and pulled him in a sitting position until the reflex to retch stopped. At least he had not actually vomited, just retched out air. His heart still raced.

“Nightmares again?”

He nodded. It took him several moments until he had found the strength to say his name: “Horde Prime. I dreamed that… That he…”

Horror washed over him again, and he could not say it, instead he felt tears burn in his eyes. He slung his arms around himself.

“Is it… okay to touch you?”, Entrapta reached out helpingly.

“No. I… I think… it feels like to much right now. But can you please stay? Just so that I know you nearby?”

“Okay.”, she kept nearby as he stumbled his way back to the bed, not touching him but close enough to catch him if he fell. Then she crawled to the end of the bed near the wall to give him enough space. He lied down, griped the blanket. His heart still beat too fast, but did not race anymore.

“Do you want to talk about it or does it just brings things back?”

“I want to talk about it.”, his voice sounded a bit rough as if he really had fought Horde Prime, “Talking about it makes it feel lesser real.”

“Okay”, she said, and so he told. His voice kept breaking down at the most violating parts of it, but she seemed to understand it.

“I’m sorry.”, she sounded so horrified. Only then he realized that a part of him had still thought it was right, that he deserved it. “He is dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I know I am foolish for still fearing him…”

“No, you’re not. Trauma stays.”, he could hear that she was talking from experience again, but he had not the energy to react to it and knew that she did not expect it.

Then she asked, and her voice sounded surprisingly calm: “Was this a memory?”

“That he punishes me? Yes of course.”

“That he”, he heard her gulp, “raped you.”

Hordak breathed in deeply. Truth was, he didn’t want to know. He did not want yet another trauma, another memory that haunted him, another thing to feel disgusting about. But this would come up from the depth of his consciousness anyway now. So he searched through his memory.

“I… I don’t know. Most likely not, but so much of my memory is just… holes. It’s still not all back fully, but I remember that this was like this already before to an extent. I only remember fragments of the first ten years of my life.”

“So your life in the Galactic Horde before your disability surfaced and the earliest time here on Etheria. Oh Hordak, I never realized that this was this traumatizing. I have large gaps in memory for my time on Beast Island and for my deepest low in the time before, but that is it.”

“I didn’t understand that this is a trauma response. I thought everybody has this.”, she reached out for him, and then pulled back her hand as she realized that he did not want to be touched. He snuggled deeper into the blanket.

“I don’t think he has. He definitely did… things with some of the other Clones. Is it rape when they consent but are to indoctrinated to understand that there should be other options and have no chance to say no? But… he would not touch me. He was too disgusted by my body.”

Entrapta cried now. He saw how she tried to hold back, but she failed.

“Talk with your therapist about this, yes? I… I want to help you so badly, I want to be there for you, but I think I do not manage this alone. Not with something this horrific.”

“Okay.”, he said, because he had no energy for something more elaborate. And then: “Can you… hug me now? I feel like it would help now.”

He would perhaps not make Hordak this painfully aware of how imperfect he himself was if Kadroh had at least shown a hint of the trauma he must have. But no, he chattered happily to no one in particular and nibbled on the fruit and tiny cupcakes without showing any of the confusion and revulsion of their unknown texture as Hordak had shown for quite a long time. How could he stay so happy and friendly. How could this come so easy to him. And as if this was not enough, he was just so much more attractive than Hordak, his cheeks not this haggard, his arms muscular and the stripe of exposed stomach his pastel-colored shirt left free was well formed and hinted at a sixpack instead of simply being flat and almost concave.

He was getting better in shoving that thought aside, but every single time he met Kadroh on one of their meetings discussing the future of their species or when Kadroh stayed over in Dryl there was this moment where he wondered why Entrapta did not chose him.

And without wanting it, he got angry. Not really at Kadroh, more at himself for being like this.

Well, Kadroh did have his own problems, he must have, he was just very good in pretending he was thriving. Hordak had heard him cry once as he walked past his room and still heard him cry as he came back hours later, but this was all hidden.

He sighed to himself. He had a topic he needed to talk with Kadroh – the closest available other clone – and this pondering did no good.

He talked a bit with Kadroh, small talk, he hated small talk, it was so unnecessary, but he never quite found a possibility to bring this topic up. Finally he decided to just ask.

“What are your personal experiences with clones like us and their sexuality?”

Kadrohs eyes grew wide: “You mean as in sex education? That seems like a very necessary thing, given the Etherians fixation on this!”

It was almost annoying sometimes what a good leader he was, always thinking at his people.

“I mean on a more personal level, if this is not to private. I want to… compare data.”

“Did you and Entrapta have sex? How was it? Is our kind able to?”, Kadroh asked without any hesitation.

“Entraptas and mine eh… intimate encounters are none of your business. And yes, we are. It, uhm, it works from the anatomy.”

“Well, you asked me, so I assumed you wanted to talk.”

Only now Hordak realized how confusing he had behaved. This kind of confusing, irrational behavior Entrapta was annoyed about with most people. “It is just somewhat of a taboo topic, even though the extent of the taboo depends on the culture.”

“Oh.”, said Kadroh, and then: “I have no experiences to compare though. Everything is so new, I was preoccupied with finding my place here, I never felt anything of this.”

Of course. He was so young and he was only free since half a year, of course this was too early.

“That is no problem. There is enough time for this to develop, and even if not, Entrapta told me that there are people who never have this sort of urges and that this is completely normal and healthy too.”

“Oh, but I would like if it develops!”

Hordak had not expected that: “Why?”

“It sounds fascinating and fun, and as if it’s a whole other way of getting close to people, and there has to be a reason so much of Etherian culture is focused on it.”

Still baffled, Hordak asked: “You do not fear that it is impure?”

“Horde Prime said it is.”, there was only the slightest bit of tremble in his voice. “But he lied to us, so he surely lied to us about that too.”

“Of course.”, he had known that, of course he had, but hearing it like this made it feel more true.

“And you don’t still doubt? Think that he might be right and we are sinners and this is all impure and wrong?”

“I do, yes. But I just have to believe he was wrong, right? This is just the only way.”

Hordak nodded. It was nothing new, but when Kadroh said that, it reached his brain in another, possibly deeper way. He felt oddly hopeful.


	8. Perspective

The next days, Hordaks emotional state was oddly unstable, both despair and happiness so much closer than usual and ready to go off into one or the other direction at the slightest detail. Entrapta seemed to have recovered fully from her breakdown on Beast Island, but he could not rejoice about that because his own emotions were so intense it was… draining. Something was changing inside the mechanics of his mind, and he could not wait for it be finished. But a part of him also fumed over how he had still not made progress.

The dream haunted him, no matter how much he tried to push it away.

It would have been confusing and exhausting enough, but his desire was set off easier than ever before. A look at Entrapta was enough, a specific tone in her voice, catching her scent, sometimes even just things or thoughts that reminded him at her, and a longing throb would go through his loins.

And every time a part of him felt presumptuous and disgusting for it.

He was glad about the second therapy session.

They had planned to do some more elaborate diagnosis process, but instead ended up talking about his mess of a emotional state.

She then gave him another advice to get lesser ashamed about his body: “It will not solve everything from one moment to the other, but it might help to shift your perspective a bit: Have you ever looked up other physically disabled people? Pictures of them that portray them as beautiful and happy?”

“I… would not know how to find them. There were some people back in the Fright Zone who also had”, defects, “disabilities of some sort, and I did my best to accommodate for them so that they could prove their worth, but it was always much smaller. A missing finger or a missing eye, a injury from the war making them walk a bit inelegant, pincers that do not quite work in the areas hands work or a tongue not able to speak the Etherian main species language. Nothing as disruptive as mine.”

Isana took a sheet of paper from the desk and started writing down names on it: “By heart I only know Gelius, who was a famous painter about a hundred years ago from the Bright Moon region, and that four years ago there was a advertisement campaign for a Plumerian clothing brand that also starred a model with muscle atrophy. Given that Plumeria is the most ableist country of Etheria, as you know”, he thought at Perfuma and how disgusting she had treated Entrapta, and that there never had been any repercussions for this, “it was controversial, so make sure you only look for the actual advertisement, but I remember that this was really beautiful and natural.”

He nodded, and took the sheet.

The paintings he found from Gelius had the same elegant, airy style the architecture of Brightmoon had, but there was a level of something true hidden in them that just lurked underneath. It was mostly birds, intermingling with more symbolic patterns. Hordak knew to less about art to really understand the meaning of all of this.

“revolutionized the impressionist community in Bright Moon with his mixture of reality and symbol”, he read. He clicked on the entry about the artist himself.

Gelius was a night elf, the same pointy eared, grey skinned species as Shadow Weaver had been. On the picture he sat in a simple wheelchair, and wore light but elegant summer clothes, so that Hordak could clearly see how angular and unhealthily skinny and bony his body was. His head looked too big and his shoulder bones stuck out in an eerily similar way to how his own looked when he did not wore the armor. There were other people in the picture too, a somewhat more ruffled looking man of the same species, and a girl of about fourteen years. They all smiled, and it looked so natural, like such a normal family picture, as Hordak now realized he had honestly not thought was possible for someone so visibly defect.

Something warm and painful in its sheer hope rushed through him.

He scrolled down. “In days where his arms worked particulary bad, Gelius taught himself to draw with his mouth instead.” The picture depicted just that, the artist with a brush between his teeth. It should have looked strange, but the concentrated and deeply proud expression made it look almost normal. That he had been proud enough of this to let someone take a photo of it… If Hordak were this level of weakened he would never let anybody take a picture of it.

One of the last entries on the page was a quote: “People often ask me if I am still happy despite my disability, and it feels like such a strange question to me. Surely I have hardships, specific ones for me, but everybody does have some form of them. This is just my life.”

After that, Hordak searched for the Plumerian advertisement campain. He tried his best to only read the entries depicting the actual picture, not the commentary about it, but several times he still stumbled upon parts of comments. It would be unaesthetic and disgusting to show someone like this, what were they thinking, the models body was gross and unhygienic, would someone please think of the children this would scare, they should never be forced to see something like this.

With powerless rage he felt very silly for, he finally clicked on the link.

The picture was beautiful. The young woman was not in a wheelchair, but she steadied herself on crutches on both sides, and he could see braces similar to the first skeleton version of his armor around her legs and arms. She clearly had some sort of muscle atrophy too; her legs and arms were down to the bone almost, and something about her stance seemed oddly twisted. She stood in front of some bush of white flowers, vines touching her shoulders and hands and legs, the white blending with the white of her elegant rough-weaven sleeveless shirt and knee-length skirt. Her expression was one of enchantment and awe, making it seem as if she was not separated from the nature surrounding her but just another part of it.

She was beautiful, he realized. Precious.

He did not found her sexually attractive, she was not his type, but just that someone like her could be beautiful made it just seem a tiny bit more possible that he could be beautiful too.

He had learned to not read the comments, expecting more hate, but the layout of the page made it hard not to, and so he accidentally read the first one.

Someone named SuperFart69 very articulated stated: “Hrrg gorgus wanna fuck hr”

Badly spelled as it was, it made something else shift in him just for a moment, the idea that maybe, just maybe, someone like him truly could be even sexually attractive, if it was not just Entrapta but also some random person on the internet who found them desirable.

He knew that most likely, the feeling would only stay a few more minutes, at best, but something had shifted, and he instinctively understood that it was a good sign.

The next evening he laid beside Entrapta on a blanket at top of the rocks Crypto Castle was built into, watching the stars. It was this time of the year where it got darker earlier, so they didn’t even had to stay up longer.

Entrapta watched the stars with wide eyes, listened to him telling everything he remembered about them, and love for her overcame him anew.

As he started to shiver in the growing cold, she pulled him to her and warmed him with her hair and body. He felt so happy that it was almost too large to grasp.

After a while she said: “Should we go back?” So they made their way down the rocks, and back into Crypto Castle. He let the machines took his armor off, and was about to go to his bedroom, as she asked: “Should we go to my bedroom?”

He knew that already tomorrow, he would feel sinful and dirty and wrong for this, but right now, he just felt courage and anticipation. He wanted this. So he agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parted the chapter this belonged to, so that I have something to post for this week. But I still need to write the continueation so there will be a longer break until I upload again


	9. Fumbling Forward

Entrapta helped Hordak walk the longer way to her room. The way his thin arm and his lean body felt against her was already a sweet promise.

This time, there was no hesitation. They sunk down on the bed, the black of Hordaks dress and the blue and white of his skin a stark contrast to the pink of her bedsheet.

She could feel his desire in his kiss, feel it in the way he arched his body towards her as she kissed his neck.

She had touched herself so often the last days thinking at him, feeling him this firm and real now was incredible. Her hands ran over his bare flank. His skin was so soft and smooth there. She touched the hem of his dress over his stomach and shoved her fingers underneath, over the thin, shuddering muscles there. He gasped.

“Is that okay?”, she asked.

The way his head fell back and his eyes closed was so fucking delicious, her sex throbbed already.

“Yes.”, he almost growled.

She reached the warm metal of his implants, circled them with her fingers. His breath was already slightly flat.

“You feel so good…”

“Hmm…”, the rumbling of his deep voice seemed to end up straight between her legs.

She reached the upper edge of the cut-out, almost at his chest, and could not really bring her hands any further.

He sat up a bit. “Should I… put my top off?”

She tried not to show the intense wave of arousal rolling through her: “If you are comfortable with it.”

He nodded. Then he pulled the upper part of his dress over his head, and laid it down on the floor.

“This”, he gestured to the small band of fabric covering his chest, “too?”

Why was it suddenly so hard to speak? She had seen men with completely uncovered torso, of course she had, she watched porn and loved erotic fanart, and she knew that on some other planets and even some of Etherias peoples a mans nipples and chest were not considered sexual – but here on Dryl it was, and she had never actually seen it in real life.

“If… if you are okay with it.”

“I am.”, he sounded a bit nervous too, but then reached to his back and opened the fastenings. The band fell into his lap.

Emaciated as he was, his chest was surprisingly muscular, a beautiful curve of muscle. A large speckle of white roughly in the form of a rectangle splotched just over his sternum, the one of which only the tips had been shown with the band still on, with blue splashing into it. His nipples were dark blue and looked, as far as she could tell with her limited knowledge of real life male anatomy, hard. She breathed in deeply.

“You’re beautiful.”, she said, to much in awe to say anything else.

He smiled shyly. He looked so cute like this, she couldn’t help but lean forward and kiss him again. Her heart beat heavily as she felt his naked chest under her fingers. The kisses soon switched to his ears, almost burningly hot, and then his neck. Her nerves were tense the whole time, and she could not tell if it was with anticipation or fear.

She pulled back to be able to watch him, and laid both of her hands on his chest. She could feel his flat breathing and his racing heart. Slowly, she stroke down, feeling the curve of the muscle under her fingers. It felt soft and firm at the same time.

He gasped slightly as she brushed over his nipples.

“Are they sensitive?”

His brows quirked in desperate desire for a moment. It was only part of a second, but it made Entrapta nearly shudder with the wave of hotness through her sex. “Yes… I… I think they are.”

“Good.”, before the bravery left her, Entrapta pressed him down on the bed and put her mouth on the base of his neck, where it met his torso, and worked her way down to the collar bone. He squirmed underneath her as she caressed the arch with her lips. His low growls seemed to end up directly in her sex.

She caressed his lean stomach and his flanks as she kissed, and was rewarded with his deep moans. How could his voice be this beautiful?

She worked her way down his chest, down their curve. His moans grew louder and louder.

“I dreamed about doing this for as long as I have sexual thoughts…”

He whimpered longingly, but it was cut off as she closed her mouth around his nipple. The nub of it felt absolutely fascinating against her tongue, different than how she had imagined it all this time. She flipped her tongue over it.

His whole body tensed, and she heard him moan louder than he ever had before. As she looked up, his head was arched back, his lips parted.

She gasped for air, and caressed his chest with her mouth again, experimented with the firmness and softness of it and how it changed the way his moans sounded. Having control over him like this, it made her so damn wet.

The time that followed blurred into itself, everything was just the sensation of him under her lips and tongue and his shifting, arching body against hers and the sound of his lust. At some point she started to let her tongue dance in small, fast movements over his chest as it had felt so good when he had done that with her neck.

A sharp gasp. His whole body flinched up. Somewhere at the periphery of her vision, she noticed how his hips bucked and thrusted into the air.

She did it again. An almost painful throb between her legs as she relished his reaction. The sheets rustled with the movement of his hips.

This time she raised her head a bit and actually looked. There was a very obvious bulge in his skirt.

She felt her sex clench tight as she realized, but at the same time it hit her just how far they had already gone, and that she did not have the courage to do anything with that particular reaction.

She looked up again and found him watching her, his pale cheeks reddened. For a moment they stared at each other wordlessly, then he seemed to realize what she had thought, and softly pulled her to him to kiss her.

His lips, so hot and wet and alive, found her neck, and she signed. She pulled the collar of her shirt down to give him better access, and he hummed, the sound so deep that it seemed to vibrate in her loins. He kissed her again, harder this time. She pulled him as close as possible, felt his thin, bare body against her.

She wanted, needed, more of this.

An idea arose, but as she opened her mouth just a puny “I…” escaped, it seemed to be much easier to think it than to actually say it. She tried again: “I would like… to try that too, if that is okay, only if that is okay of course.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. He nodded, eyes wide.

She felt as if she would not get enough air as she grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it up, pulled it over her head, then let it sink to the floor. Now she only wore her bra, and even if she knew it was okay because it was him, even if she had done it before, it still felt so strange. She reached for the fastening on her back with her hair, and then unclasped it. The way the familiar pressure around her chest was suddenly gone as the bra only dangled on the straps over her shoulder anymore sent a shock through her, she was really doing this. It felt even more strange, no, not strange, almost wrong already. She breathed in deeply, then she pushed the straps over her shoulder and threw the bra on the floor too. She felt the air against her bare breasts and it felt so wrong, strange, exciting.

As she was a teenager she had often felt insecure about her body, about how stocky she was, but even more about her chest. The other teenagers had loved to teased her, she still remembered vividly how the son of some lower nobility had said grinning to her: “Sixteen years old and _still_ no breasts?”. They had filled out a bit in her twenties, but still never became more than rather small, never really large, not the way Scorpias were, and suddenly all the insecurity she had came back.

She didn’t dared to look at her own uncovered upper body, but she also had to overcome herself to look at Hordak.

His eyes hat gotten even wider and his lips were parted. His gaze flipped over her chest, then he raised his head and stared with quivering gaze at her face.

“Oh Entrapta…”, he rasped out.

She felt the tension leave her a bit as she breathed out. She sat closer to him, and he leaned forward, and laid his fingertips on her collar bone. She closed her eyes.

It was embarrassing, really, she had not thought that she would be one of these demure girls who were too nervous to initiate anything at their first time, she was way to sexual for that and she hated being controlled, but right now, even breathing felt risky and different than usual, and her whole body tingled with nervous energy, not really fear but also not quite anticipation yet.

His claws graced over her neck, then over her collar bone and shoulders. She breathed hard and leaned into the touch. He went lower, and far away she heard her breath get shorter the lower he got. His claws left traces of electricity. Everything echoed between her legs, but she barely noticed it by now, it just felt too good.

Then he grabbed her right breast, and kneaded.

The throaty groan escaped her without being able to do anything about it.

“Is this… okay?”, Hordaks voice had this raspy quality again that made her so wet. She opened her eyes to look at him seeming just as nervous as she was.

“Its”, she had trouble getting the air to speak already, “more than okay… it’s just really intense. Way more intense than I thought.”

He smiled, and looked almost sly. Then he continued to knead. A jolt went through her chest as his hand grazed her nipple.

“Good. And take both hands.”

He did. “Oh yes, Hordak…”, what she had wanted to say got under in another moan. Her head had fallen back a bit in pleasure, but she got hold of his face again and noticed how his thin lips parted, how his brow was quirked and how hard he breathed.

He changed something in the way he knead, and she arched her body towards him, and for a while there was only this pleasure jolting through her chest.

Testing, he flipped his finger over one of her nipples then. Her breath caught. The pressure in her loins only increased.

“Yes, touch me there, it is very sensitive, just like yours. And directly below, that feels really good too.”

Automatically she looked down to see what he was doing. Seeing her enlarged, brown flushed nipples, so familiar, touched by his dark blue claws, there was something oddly unreal about that, but it also let a squall of wetness rush out of her sex.

She couldn’t help but whimper as he flipped his thumb over her nipple and the sensitive skin underneath. Moan and whimper.

She followed as he pressed her down on the bed, too empty of thoughts from all the pleasure to react in any way.

He leaned over her, his mouth nearly touched her ear.

“I want to know how it feels when I…”, then his braveness seemed to leave, and he just grinned nervously. But she could guess very well what he meant.

“Please.”

He breathed out shakily, then bent down and took her nipple in his mouth.

She could not have reacted in any other way than arching her head back and groaning louder than she had ever heard herself do.

His mouth was so soft and wet and firm, fuck, fuck….

Jolts went through her chest again as he kissed her, kissed her with such reverence. His lips around her flesh, his awestruck expression, she probably had never seen anything more erotic in her life. Then he looked up, and the submissiveness in his eyes…

She was panting and gasping, and it went on, it went on and on and she got lightheaded from the pleasure washing over her but she did not want to stop.

He bit lightly, and she grabbed his head with her hair and hands and pressed her fingernails in his scalp. He hummed. Then he seemed to realize something, and flipped his tongue over the underside of her breast.

“Oh yes! Fuck, that’s so good! Continue doing that!”

The pressure in her loins was more a constant than a actual throbbing now, but she was not busy to ease it, not when he kissed and licked her breasts like that.

Tingles and jolts, and it all echoed in her sex. She moaned and he moaned with her, against her skin.

At some point, he stopped, and sunk down beside her.

“This position is very draining for my arms, I don’t think I can do that any longer.”

She pulled him to her so that his head could rest on her shoulder. He was limp, he let her do it. She noticed that he indeed was out of breath in a way that seemed to be more than just his arousal. His ear was burning hot against her skin where it touched her shoulder.

“It was wonderful. You did that so well.”

He smiled exhausted, and then closed his eyes and let himself rest against her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have the following chapters finished by now, but I thought I publish this one already neverthless. Because of this I can't say when I upload again however. Specifically since my motivation to write is quite unpredictable right now.
> 
> As always, I am super happy about comments!

**Author's Note:**

> The basic idea is pretty similar to "Intimacy Log" by Lady Kit and Unladylike (Lady Kit), but since the execution is quite different I decided to write this neverthless. 
> 
> I was not sure if I actually have what it takes to get this across right, thankfully I never grew up under this sort of fundamentalist religion that results in this form of sexual guilt, but that also means I can never truly know how it feels like and only read it up, and damn, I hope I represent it right. 
> 
> Don't know when I next upload this, because I am still in the process of writing it, but I definitely continue
> 
> And don't worry, there will be parts from Entraptas perspective and with her jerking off too. 
> 
> Please comment, I love comments, no matter how short or long.


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